Fourth suspect shot in Cunupia operation

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

A fourth sus­pect has been shot by po­lice as se­cu­ri­ty forces con­tin­ue an ex­ten­sive op­er­a­tion in Cunu­pia fol­low­ing a home in­va­sion ear­ly Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said the lat­est shoot­ing took place short­ly af­ter mid­day at Ram­nar­ine Trace, Cunu­pia, when of­fi­cers con­front­ed a man dur­ing on­go­ing search­es in the area. Fur­ther de­tails on his con­di­tion were not im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able.

The de­vel­op­ment came hours af­ter three sus­pect­ed ban­dits were killed and two oth­ers ar­rest­ed dur­ing an ear­li­er con­fronta­tion with of­fi­cers re­spond­ing to a re­port­ed home in­va­sion.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has since urged res­i­dents of Ram­nar­ine Trace, Es­mer­al­da Road, Sam­son Road, Charles Trace and near­by com­mu­ni­ties to re­main vig­i­lant and re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty as the man­hunt con­tin­ues.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, around 3:30 am a 70-year-old farmer from Cunu­pia was awak­ened by loud nois­es at his home and con­front­ed by masked, armed men.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the as­sailants tied up the vic­tim and be­fore flee­ing, they robbed him of $1,120 and a cell­phone.

Of­fi­cers from the po­lice Home In­va­sion Team, Cen­tral Di­vi­sion units and the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force lat­er tracked the sus­pects to Ram­nar­ine Trace off Es­mer­al­da Road, where po­lice said they came un­der gun­fire.

Of­fi­cers re­turned fire, killing three men and ar­rest­ing two oth­ers.

Po­lice con­firmed Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon that one of the dead men had been iden­ti­fied as a Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent.

As of 1:30 pm, of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cialised units re­mained in­volved in search­es for ad­di­tion­al sus­pects con­nect­ed to the home in­va­sion.

Po­lice said op­er­a­tions were con­tin­u­ing across parts of Cen­tral Trinidad.

The sus­pect's con­di­tion is un­known