Ariapita Ave shootout leads to dramatic police chase

Shane Su­perville

A Mor­vant man was ar­rest­ed af­ter al­leged­ly open­ing fire on an­oth­er man out­side a bar on Ari­api­ta Av­enue be­fore lead­ing po­lice on a chase and shoot-out across Port-of-Spain in the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said the in­ci­dent be­gan around 4 am at the cor­ner of Fitt Street and Ari­api­ta Av­enue when two men be­came in­volved in an ar­gu­ment.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said one of the men pulled out a pis­tol and fired at the oth­er man.

The in­tend­ed vic­tim re­port­ed­ly de­fend­ed him­self by draw­ing his li­censed firearm and re­turn­ing fire at the sus­pect, but missed.

Po­lice said the sus­pect then got in­to a dark grey Nis­san Almera and sped away from the scene.

A re­port was made and an All Points Bul­letin was is­sued to of­fi­cers.

Short­ly af­ter­wards, po­lice spot­ted a ve­hi­cle match­ing the de­scrip­tion dri­ving along In­de­pen­dence Square.

Of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to stop the ve­hi­cle by ac­ti­vat­ing their sirens. How­ev­er, the sus­pect al­leged­ly ig­nored the po­lice and turned on­to South Quay.

The chase con­tin­ued in­to La­dy Young Av­enue, Mor­vant, where of­fi­cers drove along­side the sus­pect’s ve­hi­cle and or­dered him to stop and pull over.

Po­lice re­port­ed that dur­ing the pur­suit, the sus­pect pulled out a pis­tol and point­ed it at of­fi­cers, prompt­ing po­lice to open fire. Of­fi­cers, how­ev­er, missed the sus­pect.

The chase end­ed when the sus­pect crashed the ve­hi­cle at the cor­ner of Park and Rami­er Streets, Mor­vant.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the man then threw a firearm from the ve­hi­cle be­fore sur­ren­der­ing to of­fi­cers.

Po­lice ar­rest­ed the sus­pect and seized a Tau­rus pis­tol con­tain­ing three rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion marked “TTR”.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the sus­pect is not a mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment.

The man was tak­en to the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion and is ex­pect­ed to be charged.

His ve­hi­cle was towed to the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion.