RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Thieves tied up, beat and robbed three se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers in the Moru­ga forests ear­ly Wednes­day, be­fore flee­ing with steel drill pipes.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Ger­ald Hen­ry, 47, Nigel An­drews, 42 and Win­ford Stoute, 53 of Moru­ga were on du­ty at Colum­bus En­er­gy’s In­niss/Trin­i­ty fa­cil­i­ty when they were ap­proached by four masked men wear­ing dark cloth­ing.

One had a gun and the oth­ers car­ried cut­lass­es. The gun­man pulled out some straps and tied up the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers. One of the of­fi­cers tried to raise an alarm but was struck sev­er­al times. The thieves took all their cel­lu­lar phones and cash. They then be­gan chop­ping off sev­er­al steel drill pipes on the com­pound.

Po­lice said Stoute man­aged to free him­self and ran off, rais­ing an alarm. The thieves then fled, leav­ing the pipes on the ground.

Po­lice said they have beefed up pa­trols in the area and are on the search for the sus­pects.

Off-du­ty cop shoots rob­ber

Mean­while, in an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, po­lice are al­so on the look­out for an in­jured rob­ber who was pos­si­bly shot by an off du­ty po­lice­man fol­low­ing a rob­bery at Block Four, Palmiste on Tues­day.
In­ves­ti­ga­tors said PC Mi­tra Gob­in, 46, was stand­ing in the vicin­i­ty of Triple M Equip­ment Rental when he was ap­proached by the gun­man who de­mand­ed cash and jew­ellery.

The po­lice of­fi­cer was stripped of his gold chain with pen­dant val­ued $40,000, one di­a­mond cut hand band val­ued $8000, a gold ring with the TTPS de­sign val­ued $2000 and $5,000.

The sus­pect then ran off and tried to es­cape in a wait­ing grey Mit­subishi Lancer.

PC Gob­in gave chase and drew his li­censed firearm from his an­kle hol­ster. The sus­pect then fired three shots at the of­fi­cer who re­turned fire.

The sus­pect then jumped in­to the car which sped off.

Of­fi­cers of the South Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre were asked to be on the look­out for the car. It was dis­cov­ered aban­doned on Cipero Road with ex­ten­sive dam­ages to the front. There was a gun­shot on the dri­ver's side door and blood on the dri­ver's seat.
PC Goolcha­ran and Actg Cpl Bee­tan in­ter­viewed Gob­in and re­cov­ered three spent wheels from the scene of the crime. ASP Ali-Mo­hammed is con­tin­u­ing en­quires.
(RDS)