Home invasion suspect held after Wallerfield shooting

A 23-year-old Ari­ma man iden­ti­fied as a per­son of in­ter­est in a re­cent home in­va­sion re­mains in po­lice cus­tody af­ter a shoot­ing in­volv­ing of­fi­cers in Waller­field on Wednes­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), of­fi­cers as­signed to the North­ern Di­vi­sion Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment re­spond­ed to re­ports of loud ex­plo­sions along An­tigua Road, Waller­field, around 9 pm on Oc­to­ber 14.

The of­fi­cers left their un­marked ve­hi­cle and walked about 50 feet along a dirt road sur­round­ed by bush­es, where they saw a group of men stand­ing be­side a gold-coloured Nis­san B13.

Two of the men were re­port­ed­ly hold­ing what ap­peared to be firearms.

Po­lice said the of­fi­cers iden­ti­fied them­selves, but the two armed men turned to­wards them and opened fire.

Two of­fi­cers dis­charged their ser­vice pis­tols in the di­rec­tion of the sus­pects in keep­ing with the TTPS use of force pol­i­cy, af­ter which the men ran in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions.

Two of the sus­pects es­caped, while a third was ap­pre­hend­ed a short dis­tance away af­ter of­fi­cers gave chase.

The 23-year-old man was un­in­jured, and no of­fi­cers were hurt in the in­ci­dent.

Of­fi­cers from the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force and La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion sub­se­quent­ly joined the search for the two men who es­caped, but they were not found.

Three spent 9mm shells were re­cov­ered at the scene. The ap­pre­hend­ed man re­mains in cus­tody as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, a 38-year-old Bar­rack­pore man want­ed for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with an­oth­er home in­va­sion was de­tained in San Fer­nan­do dur­ing an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise ear­ly on Thurs­day.

The in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed in the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Dis­trict be­tween 11.30 pm on Wednes­day and 3 am on Thurs­day, with a fo­cus on ap­pre­hend­ing sus­pects linked to se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes in the South­ern Di­vi­sion.

The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Hospedales, Su­per­in­ten­dent Bertie, As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Pacheco, Act­ing In­spec­tor Wilkin­son and Woman Sergeant Nar­i­nesingh.

It was su­per­vised by Act­ing Cor­po­ral Khan and in­volved of­fi­cers from the San Fer­nan­do Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force and South­ern Di­vi­sion Gang Unit.