Following Cunupia operation …

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) now be­lieve they have dis­man­tled a crim­i­nal gang linked to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 24 re­ports of home in­va­sions over a six-week pe­ri­od in Cen­tral Trinidad, fol­low­ing an ex­er­cise which re­sult­ed in the deaths of four of its mem­bers over the week­end.

Mem­bers of the “Tall Boots Crew” had sev­er­al Cen­tral com­mu­ni­ties un­der siege be­fore their ac­tiv­i­ties came to a dra­mat­ic halt fol­low­ing a po­lice ex­er­cise in Cunu­pia on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said the gang, named in­for­mal­ly by Cunu­pia res­i­dents due to their use of tall gar­den­ing boots dur­ing their as­saults on homes, was re­port­ed­ly linked to home in­va­sions in Cunu­pia, Ch­agua­nas, Freeport and as far north as Las Lo­mas, be­gin­ning in late March.

Po­lice said eight ban­dits con­front­ed a 70-year-old farmer at his home off Es­mer­al­da Road, Cunu­pia, at around 3.30 am, steal­ing $1,120 in cash be­fore flee­ing.

A re­port was made and of­fi­cers from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, the Home In­va­sion Team (HIT) and sol­diers from the Reg­i­ment re­spond­ed, chas­ing the men be­fore even­tu­al­ly in­ter­cept­ing them near Ram­nar­ine Trace. A gun bat­tle en­sued and three sus­pects were killed, while two oth­ers were ar­rest­ed and two oth­ers es­caped.

How­ev­er, a se­ries of po­lice drag­nets led to the death of an­oth­er sus­pect short­ly af­ter mid­day. Four pis­tols were seized by po­lice fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to a TTPS me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, three of the dead sus­pects were iden­ti­fied as Mikhail Giuseppe, of Wa­ter Hole, Co­corite; Davion Giuseppe, 30, of Lee Trace, North Cunu­pia and Kevin “Frog Man” John, 35, al­so of Cunu­pia.

The fourth sus­pect re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to press time.

In an ad­vi­so­ry is­sued through the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, ACP Richard Smith, who leads the Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion and the Home In­va­sion Team (HIT), yes­ter­day warned young peo­ple against be­ing part of home in­va­sion gang net­works.

“There is no re­ward in crim­i­nal­i­ty, the life of crime in­evitably leads to neg­a­tive con­se­quences, loss of free­dom, loss of op­por­tu­ni­ties and in many in­stances, loss of life. We will not al­low a small group of in­di­vid­u­als to dis­rupt the peace and se­cu­ri­ty of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” Smith said.

Smith al­so im­plored the pub­lic to part­ner with the po­lice by re­port­ing any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty.

Mean­while, one of­fi­cer who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty with Guardian Me­dia said their en­quiries be­gan when a sim­i­lar group of ban­dits were iden­ti­fied and dis­man­tled in the Cou­va Di­vi­sion. How­ev­er, at­ten­tion grad­u­al­ly shift­ed to the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion’s Area North, which in­cludes Cunu­pia and oth­er ar­eas, ear­li­er this year.

“We no­ticed it hap­pened in area north, then we saw the modus (operan­di) changed, so we recog­nised this was a dif­fer­ent team. We ob­served it over a pe­ri­od of time and based on the de­scrip­tion, we re­alised the be­hav­iour was con­sis­tent with a sin­gle clique of per­sons,” the of­fi­cer said.

The of­fi­cer not­ed that they sus­pect there are more mem­bers of the crew who were not on the scene at Sat­ur­day’s home in­va­sion and they are be­ing sought by po­lice.

The source added that de­spite this, po­lice were still on height­ened alert to pre­vent any con­tin­ued flare-ups of home in­va­sions in and around the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We recog­nise that when we ar­rest a few sus­pects, we see oth­ers ris­ing up, so we aren’t tak­ing any­thing for grant­ed. We’re not re­laxed and rock back, we can­not rest, we’re vig­i­lant at all times.”

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns from some farm­ers on Ram­nar­ine Trace that the “Tall Boots Crew” was one of two sep­a­rate cliques com­mit­ting rob­beries and home in­va­sions in the com­mu­ni­ty, the of­fi­cer said that while this could not be con­firmed, the two sus­pects in cus­tody could pro­vide fur­ther in­sight on the crew’s work­ings.

The source—with­out iden­ti­fy­ing which of the dead sus­pects—said one of the men killed by po­lice was pre­vi­ous­ly charged for break­ing and en­ter­ing of­fences, while the two sur­viv­ing ban­dits in cus­tody were al­so “on the radar” of po­lice be­fore Sat­ur­day’s in­ci­dent.

An­oth­er of­fi­cer, who al­so asked not to be named, said the swift re­sponse of the po­lice in iden­ti­fy­ing and con­fronting the sus­pects was part of a re­newed, “sharp­ened” op­er­a­tional ap­proach aimed at re­spond­ing to ag­gres­sive threats.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Charles Street, off Es­mer­al­da Road, Cunu­pia, yes­ter­day and spoke with a res­i­dent who iden­ti­fied him­self as a close fam­i­ly friend of Kevin John, one of the sus­pects killed by po­lice.

“Ke­vi and them did what they did. It was wrong, yes, but the fact re­mains they (the po­lice) could have ar­rest­ed him, which they had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do with­out killing him un­law­ful­ly,” the man said.

The man, who was cau­tious to speak fur­ther on the is­sue, said he and oth­er rel­a­tives were not con­vinced that the of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion put for­ward by po­lice was ac­cu­rate, as he ques­tioned whether John shot at po­lice first. He said John was last seen lim­ing with rel­a­tives at the fam­i­ly’s home some­time on Fri­day night. He told them that he was leav­ing to get beers and promised to re­turn, but nev­er did.

Ac­cord­ing to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, there have been 12 fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings as of May 4, with 16 peo­ple killed.