SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Writer

Res­i­dents of Rail­way Road, Cou­va, are claim­ing that po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a 21-year-old man on Thurs­day af­ter­noon. How­ev­er, of­fi­cers said that they were shot at by two men as they con­duct­ed an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in the area.

Po­lice said Josi­ah Vespry, who was re­cent­ly re­leased from prison, was killed dur­ing an ex­change of gun­fire with of­fi­cers.

Ac­cord­ing to their re­ports, of­fi­cers from the South­ern Di­vi­sion were con­duct­ing the ex­er­cise just around 1 pm in both marked and un­marked ve­hi­cles along Rail­way Road.

Po­lice said as the of­fi­cers came out of the un­marked car to car­ry out fur­ther en­quiries, two armed men be­gan shoot­ing at them.

Of­fi­cers re­turned fire as the men ran off. A chase en­sued and po­lice said Vespry col­lapsed in a yard bleed­ing.

He was tak­en to the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal where he lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

The oth­er man fled and man­aged to elude of­fi­cers. Po­lice added that Vespry was a known drug deal­er and may have al­so been in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

How­ev­er, an­gry res­i­dents dis­put­ed the ac­count giv­en by the po­lice.

They said the 21-year-old was shot and killed while flee­ing from of­fi­cers and did not open fire on them. Res­i­dents al­so claimed to have cap­tured every­thing that tran­spired on cam­era.

Yes­ter­day, a few hours af­ter the dead­ly po­lice shoot­ing, Snr Supt Richard Smith of the South­ern Di­vi­sion told Guardian Me­dia that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been launched in­to the in­ci­dent.

Of­fi­cers al­leged­ly re­trieved a Glock, mag­a­zine and sev­er­al rounds of am­mu­ni­tion at the scene.