An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer shot a rob­ber and de­tained two oth­ers dur­ing a dar­ing at­tempt­ed rob­bery in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

And even as po­lice rushed the in­jured man to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro again urged the crim­i­nal el­e­ments to, “hand in your weapons and walk away from crime.”

Com­mend­ing the of­fi­cer for his re­sponse, the top cop urged crim­i­nals, “Choose a path of in­tegri­ty and peace while the door to re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion is open, but time is of the essence.”

The dar­ing rob­bery and sub­se­quent shoot­ing around 10.35 am at the 7-11 Sports Bar at the cor­ner of Char­lotte Street and In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, left pa­trons and near­by ven­dors shak­en.

Po­lice said the sus­pects, aged 20, 23, and 26, all of Laven­tille, en­tered the casi­no and be­gan rob­bing pa­trons at gun­point.

The shoot­ing sent street ven­dors rush­ing for cov­er, while the usu­al limers along the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade al­so scat­tered as passers-by sought cov­er, crowd­ing in­to stores and fast-food out­lets.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene, the casi­no re­mained closed to the pub­lic as of­fi­cers con­tin­ued en­quiries.

The own­er of the es­tab­lish­ment, a Chi­nese na­tion­al, ar­rived al­most an hour af­ter the shoot­ing and de­clined to speak with re­porters.

Con­firm­ing a firearm had been re­cov­ered at the scene, Snr Supt of the Port-of Spain Di­vi­sion, Ray­mond Thom, warned peo­ple about com­ing in­to the cap­i­tal to en­gage in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Our of­fi­cers in Port-of-Spain are very com­mit­ted and very vig­i­lant,” he said.

He as­sured, “We are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all cit­i­zens whilst they tra­verse the cap­i­tal city.

“We are re­mind­ing mem­bers of so­ci­ety that crime is a na­tion­al is­sue and we urge them to con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with law en­force­ment and share in­for­ma­tion on all crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Thom added, “We al­so re­mind the crim­i­nal el­e­ments that their be­hav­iour would not be tol­er­at­ed and that they should make ef­forts to re­form and seek oth­er le­gal means of em­ploy­ment.”

A busi­ness own­er close by ex­pressed con­cern over the shoot­ing, as he re­vealed he had been robbed three times in the past 15 years.

The own­er said he had a dai­ly chal­lenge try­ing to de­ter­mine who was com­ing in­to his shop to make a pur­chase and those who were pre­tend­ing to be cus­tomers, in­tend­ing to rob him.

“A lot of my cus­tomers are what you would say, are av­er­age look­ing. You can’t de­ter­mine who is about to do some­thing.”

Asked how he felt re­gard­ing this lat­est rob­bery, as it would have oc­curred while the coun­try is un­der a State of Emer­gency (SoE), the busi­ness­man said, “You would think that they would think, that may be we should hold out be­cause of the SoE, but clear­ly it show­ing they have no re­gard for the SoE.”

Asked if he re­mained con­fi­dent the po­lice could get a han­dle on the crime sit­u­a­tion, he hes­i­tat­ed be­fore re­ply­ing, “The po­lice are an­oth­er thing.

“They re­spond­ed here quick­ly when I was robbed. I have some mea­sure of con­fi­dence ... not 75, not 85 or 95...but some mea­sure.”

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, CoP Gue­var­ro cau­tioned crim­i­nals, “To­day was not a vic­to­ry for brava­do, it was a stark re­minder of con­se­quences.”

He said the foiled rob­bery un­der­scored the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness his of­fi­cers brought to every mo­ment.

“The of­fi­cer’s brav­ery and pre­ci­sion un­der pres­sure re­flect the very ethos of this in­sti­tu­tion: Pro­tect and Serve with P R I D E.”

The Com­mis­sion­er again had a warn­ing for crim­i­nals.

“All per­sons in­volved in il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties to put down their firearms as they will not be able to ter­rorise the pub­lic with­out fac­ing the con­se­quences of their ac­tions.

“The TTPS re­mains stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal net­works and will meet any threat to pub­lic safe­ty with a pro­por­tion­al re­sponse and law­ful de­ter­mi­na­tion.”