Tobago cops kill two in Buccoo shootout

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Two sus­pect­ed gun­men were killed and a po­lice of­fi­cer in­jured dur­ing a shootout with po­lice in Buc­coo on Wednes­day night, mark­ing To­ba­go’s first po­lice-in­volved fa­tal shoot­ing of 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, of­fi­cers act­ing on in­tel­li­gence in­ter­cept­ed a sil­ver Toy­ota Aqua along Gold­en Grove Road, Buc­coo, around 7 pm. How­ev­er, the ve­hi­cle’s oc­cu­pants al­leged­ly opened fire on the of­fi­cers.

Po­lice re­turned fire, hit­ting both sus­pects.

One sus­pect was pro­nounced dead at the scene, while the oth­er was tak­en to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, where he lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

An of­fi­cer was al­so wound­ed dur­ing the ex­change and is re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the hos­pi­tal.

The iden­ti­ties of the men were not re­vealed up to press time.

The in­ci­dent comes just days af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as­sent­ed to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned crim­i­nals that tougher an­ti-crime mea­sures will be im­ple­ment­ed un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

Un­der the new law, To­ba­go is des­ig­nat­ed as Dis­trict Sev­en and al­lows for spec­i­fied ar­eas to be de­clared “closed spaces,” re­quir­ing per­mits for en­try and move­ment dur­ing des­ig­nat­ed pe­ri­ods.

The Prime Min­is­ter is al­so ex­pect­ed to vis­it To­ba­go soon for the open­ing of three joint po­lice and mil­i­tary posts aimed at strength­en­ing law en­force­ment on the is­land.