Rideshare driver knocks down bandit in failed robbery

Shane Su­perville

A 19-year-old Laven­tille man is be­ing treat­ed for in­juries af­ter a rideshare dri­ver al­leged­ly knocked him down while es­cap­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery on Sat­ur­day night.

Po­lice said the dri­ver re­ceived a re­quest through his mo­bile app to pick up two women on In­de­pen­dence Square, Port of Spain, at around 9.19 pm.

One of the women asked the dri­ver to take her to Whar­ton Branch Road, Laven­tille, to col­lect an item be­fore con­tin­u­ing the ride.

How­ev­er, on reach­ing the area, one of the women got out of the car as two ban­dits, one of whom was armed with a gun, ap­proached the ve­hi­cle and de­mand­ed cash.

The dri­ver sped off, hit­ting one of the ban­dits with his car, while the oth­er fired a shot at the ve­hi­cle.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent, the re­main­ing woman in the back seat got out and ran away.

Hours lat­er, po­lice re­port­ed that a man match­ing the de­scrip­tion of one of the sus­pects in the at­tempt­ed rob­bery went to the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he re­ceived treat­ment for in­juries.

Po­lice were no­ti­fied and the man was tak­en to the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, where he re­mained up to Sun­day morn­ing.

Of­fi­cers of the Besson Street CID are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.

Last week, Port of Spain po­lice urged rideshare dri­vers to be cau­tious when pick­ing up pas­sen­gers fol­low­ing an in­crease in rob­beries in which ban­dits al­leged­ly used mo­bile taxi apps to tar­get vic­tims.