PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.chris­tisto­pher@guardian.co.tt

A sergeant in the T&T De­fence Force was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) yes­ter­day for the al­leged rape and bug­gery of a child.

The of­fi­cer was cor­nered by of­fi­cers of SORT at around 1.30 pm out­side a beau­ty sa­lon and spa on Del­hi Street, St James.

Of­fi­cers tracked the sus­pect, af­ter dis­cov­er­ing a 12-year-old boy.

An in­ter­nal po­lice com­mu­ni­ca­tion doc­u­ment ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia stat­ed: “A se­nior mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment (TTR) is en­gag­ing in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty with a 12-year- old boy. It was re­port­ed that the TTR mem­ber dri­ving Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle (num­ber giv­en) had made plans to meet with the boy on No­vem­ber 28th, 2019 out­side a school lo­cat­ed in the St James area.”

The state­ment added that be­tween 12 pm and 1.40 pm, SORT of­fi­cers and the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) con­duct­ed sur­veil­lance at an ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tute in St James when the sergeant was ob­served dri­ving his ve­hi­cle in the vicin­i­ty of the ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tute.

It not­ed that the SORT of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle and the sus­pect was ar­rest­ed by po­lice and a par­ty of of­fi­cers of the CPU.

The state­ment said that of­fi­cers of the CPU lat­er “con­duct­ed a con­fronta­tion” with the child vic­tim and the sol­dier and the child pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied him.

Video footage of the man sur­ren­der­ing to the heav­i­ly armed of­fi­cers emerged on so­cial me­dia hours af­ter the ar­rest.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived at the scene, the of­fi­cers were still search­ing the sus­pect’s car, while he sat in the back of a TTPS SUV.

Res­i­dents said they knew lit­tle about the sit­u­a­tion apart from see­ing the man leave his car un­der the watch­ful eye of armed of­fi­cers and sub­se­quent­ly placed in a po­lice ve­hi­cle.

The in­ci­dent prompt­ed some traf­fic dis­rup­tion in St James, as the of­fi­cers await­ed a wreck­er to re­move the ve­hi­cle af­ter they placed the sus­pect in a po­lice car. The car was even­tu­al­ly loaded on­to the wreck­er and tak­en away.

The sus­pect was al­so dri­ven away in the po­lice car with of­fi­cers of SORT trail­ing short­ly be­fore 3 pm.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed the ar­rest of the sol­dier was in­deed a part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the CPU.

The TTPS said he was be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed about that in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The man’s ar­rest in St. James was over­seen by Su­per­in­ten­dent Joseph Chan­dool of the CPU.