Officer killed in Caroni ambush; suspect killed during shootout

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

A po­lice of­fi­cer was shot dead and his li­censed firearm stolen dur­ing a sus­pect­ed rob­bery in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, late on Tues­day, while one of the al­leged at­tack­ers was al­so killed af­ter be­ing shot dur­ing the con­fronta­tion.

PC Romel Dou­glas, 48, was sit­ting in his white Nis­san Ti­i­da along South Bank Road, near Hy­draulic Trace, around 11.05 pm when gun­men con­front­ed him.

Ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary po­lice re­ports, the as­sailants opened fire, killing Dou­glas be­fore steal­ing his li­censed pis­tol.

Sources said Dou­glas man­aged to re­turned fire dur­ing the at­tack, strik­ing one of the sus­pects. The wound­ed man was lat­er dropped off at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he died short­ly af­ter­wards.

Po­lice lat­er found a ve­hi­cle be­lieved to have been used by the at­tack­ers aban­doned.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed the in­ci­dent and ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Dou­glas' fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues.

He said a co-or­di­nat­ed man­hunt was un­der way for the re­main­ing sus­pects, who re­mained at large up to Wednes­day morn­ing.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene on Wednes­day, of­fi­cers from the Re­gion III Homi­cide Bu­reau were can­vass­ing the area and search­ing for CCTV footage as part of their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.