KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice have iden­ti­fied three of the four ban­dits shot dead dur­ing a shootout at a busi­ness­man’s home in Ma­yaro on Mon­day.

Fam­i­ly mem­bers yes­ter­day iden­ti­fied the corpses of Akel George, 29, of Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant; Keshon Ro­jas, 23, of Ed­in­burgh, Ch­agua­nas and Odel Pri­eto of Covi­gne Road, Diego Mar­tin.

Po­lice are still wait­ing for rel­a­tives to con­firm the iden­ti­ty of the fourth ban­dit.

Mean­while, the search con­tin­ues for three oth­er sus­pects who es­caped dur­ing the shootout.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, sev­en ban­dits jumped over the east­ern wall of the gat­ed Krista Park com­mu­ni­ty at Beau­mont Road, Ma­yaro, around 9 am on Mon­day.

They broke in­to the home of a Chi­nese restau­rant own­er, where they bound his 17-year-old son with duct tape.

Po­lice said the busi­ness­man and his wife en­tered their home around 9.15 am and the armed ban­dits ap­proached them. The ban­dits al­so bound their hands and feet.

East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice, act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, re­spond­ed to the home in­va­sion and ar­rived at the house, where they ob­served the ban­dits ex­it­ing the yard. Up­on see­ing the of­fi­cers, the ban­dits opened fire on them.

The Po­lice Ser­vice said that keep­ing with its Use of Force Pol­i­cy, the of­fi­cers re­turned fire, hit­ting four ban­dits mul­ti­ple times. How­ev­er, the oth­ers es­caped.

Po­lice re­cov­ered a 12-gauge shot­gun, three pis­tols and an air ri­fle from the scene, along with a quan­ti­ty of cash. The of­fi­cers sub­se­quent­ly en­tered the house and res­cued the fam­i­ly.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds praised the TTPS dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the 2023 na­tion­al Bud­get de­bate in the Par­lia­ment on Mon­day. Hinds said every­one should note the po­lice’s re­cent great suc­cess­es in its re­sponse to crime.

“You saw it in La Ro­main. You saw it again this morn­ing in Ma­yaro. Every­one in this coun­try must know the po­lice are on high alert, high­ly trained, ready and re­spon­sive, and I want to com­mend the Po­lice Ser­vice for the kind of work in stand­ing in de­fence of the peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go,” Hinds said.