JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to a car be­ing stolen form the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion be­gan yes­ter­day, with of­fi­cers if the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau seiz­ing a sta­tion di­ary.

A si­mul­ta­ne­ous probe is al­so be­ing con­duct­ed by a se­nior of­fi­cer at the sta­tion.

Some­time be­tween Au­gust 1 and 3, a Toy­ota Raize was stolen from the sta­tion and sub­se­quent­ly used by crim­i­nals who were in­volved in a shootout with po­lice in Tacarigua on Wednes­day.

The SUV was ini­tial­ly found aban­doned along An­tigua Road, Waller­field, on Au­gust 1 and tak­en to the po­lice sta­tion and lat­er stolen. The ve­hi­cle was lat­er spot­ted along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, Arou­ca, on Wednes­day af­ter­noon. Po­lice said of­fi­cers pur­sued the ve­hi­cle and the dri­ver even­tu­al­ly drove on­to Gold­en Grove Road, Tacarigua. A pas­sen­ger then re­port­ed­ly point­ed a gun at the of­fi­cers, who opened fire, fa­tal­ly in­jur­ing the dri­ver while the pas­sen­ger es­caped.

This is not the first time a ve­hi­cle has been stolen from a po­lice sta­tion. In 2018, hours af­ter po­lice re­cov­ered a Kia Sportage be­long­ing to for­mer CNC3 news an­chor Khamal Georges that was tak­en at gun­point, the ve­hi­cle was re­moved from the com­pound of the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion.

Po­lice said then that the ban­dit took a spare key and left with the SUV, which was lat­er found with false num­ber plates in Bel­mont.

Port-of- Spain Di­vi­sion Task Force of­fi­cers.

The In­ter-Agency Task Force found the car af­ter the first theft at Bath Street, East Port-of-Spain and had it im­pound­ed to Besson Street Sta­tion.

Po­lice said there were at least three oth­er in­ci­dents that took place in the West­ern and Port of Spain Di­vi­sions in the past where ve­hi­cles were re­moved from po­lice sta­tions. In the oth­er in­ci­dents the ve­hi­cles were all re­cov­ered.