An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A po­lice sting op­er­a­tion to ap­pre­hend sev­er­al sus­pects fol­low­ing a Face­book Mar­ket­place trans­ac­tion re­sult­ed in two peo­ple be­ing killed and a third hav­ing to be hos­pi­talised yes­ter­day.

The uniden­ti­fied sus­pects were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at hos­pi­tal around 2 pm, fol­low­ing an al­leged shootout with po­lice of­fi­cers in Mt Hope.

A third man was in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent and was tak­en to the near­by Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he re­mained un­der po­lice guard last night.

A fourth man was said to have es­caped, and a man­hunt was launched short­ly af­ter for him.

The trans­ac­tion, which was arranged on­line, saw po­lice of­fi­cers from the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, along with per­son­nel from the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), pos­ing as prospec­tive buy­ers in the op­er­a­tion.

Re­ports in­di­cate the “vic­tims” met the sus­pects near the Mt Hope Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Com­mu­ni­ty Dri­ve, Mt Hope. How­ev­er, as the sus­pects an­nounced a rob­bery and be­gan shoot­ing at the po­lice of­fi­cers, they re­alised they had been set up. Of­fi­cers re­turned fire, which forced the sus­pects to flee.

One man was shot and col­lapsed on the dri­ve­way lead­ing to a res­i­dent’s home along Com­mu­ni­ty Dri­ve, while a sec­ond was shot and fell in the riv­er off Main­got Road. The third, who was al­so in­jured, was ap­pre­hend­ed a short dis­tance away as he at­tempt­ed to es­cape on foot. The fourth was be­lieved to have dis­ap­peared af­ter aban­don­ing the get­away car, which was lat­er towed by the po­lice.

Com­mend­ing po­lice for their ef­forts to keep the area safe, an el­der­ly res­i­dent said, “We are all hu­mans. They won’t just gun down the men so. Them fel­las wrong, they ain’t want to work.”

Hav­ing resided in the neigh­bour­hood for the past 65 years, he said, “It is not on­ly here, is the whole coun­try. But I feel good about what hap­pen. The po­lice do­ing good work. Keep it up.”

An­oth­er home­own­er, who ar­rived to see the par­ty of uni­formed and plain­clothes of­fi­cers stand­ing on the road, agreed, “They do a good thing!”

She added, “Them young boys don’t want to work. And they dis­tress­ing the neigh­bour­hood. I am on the po­lice side.”

She urged oth­ers con­sid­er­ing a life of crime to, “go out and get a job to help your­selves and your fam­i­lies.”

In a voice note to the me­dia, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed the un­der­cov­er op­er­a­tion re­sult­ed out of the pro­posed sale of a ve­hi­cle. He said a spe­cial­ist unit with­in the TTPS learned the trans­ac­tion was “ac­tu­al­ly the set-up for a rob­bery.”

Gue­var­ro ad­vised mem­bers of the pub­lic with in­for­ma­tion on the fourth sus­pect’s where­abouts to com­mu­ni­cate with the po­lice.

“Should we find out you are hid­ing that in­di­vid­ual, you will feel the full brunt of the law,” he said.

Two firearms were re­cov­ered at the scene.

The CoP re­in­forced warn­ings for the pub­lic to be wary of on­line deals which ap­pear too good.