Cop killed in ambush

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

A man­hunt is now un­der­way for sus­pects im­pli­cat­ed in the mur­der of 48-year-old po­lice­man PC Romell Dou­glas, who was gunned down while sit­ting in his Nis­san Ti­i­da in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, on Tues­day night.

Po­lice said Dou­glas, who was last at­tached to the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion’s CID, was sit­ting in his car at the cor­ner of the Ca­roni South Bank Road and Hy­draulic Trace, near the Rain­bow Su­per­mar­ket, at around 11.05 pm, when he was con­front­ed by ban­dits who tried to rob him.

Dou­glas shot one of his at­tack­ers with his li­censed pis­tol, but was al­so shot in the process. The ban­dits man­aged to steal his gun be­fore es­cap­ing.

Of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial Re­sponse Unit were on pa­trol near­by and vis­it­ed the scene, where they found Dou­glas’ body slumped in the dri­ver’s side seat of his car. A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer lat­er de­clared him dead at the scene.

Po­lice said the wound­ed sus­pect was dropped off at the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he died from wounds short­ly af­ter.

Dur­ing a TTPS me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing, Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell con­firmed that the dead sus­pect was 19-year-old Adeto­la Am­mon, of Ari­ma.

A get­away ve­hi­cle, be­lieved to have been used by the at­tack­ers, was lat­er found aban­doned in Mal­oney Gar­dens.

As of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, there were con­flict­ing ac­counts over what Dou­glas was do­ing at the cor­ner at that time of night, as some sug­gest­ed he was wait­ing for some­one when he was killed.

Guardian Me­dia tried to speak with a su­per­vi­sor at the Rain­bow Su­per­mar­ket but he de­clined to com­ment on Dou­glas’ mur­der, which hap­pened with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the busi­ness.

In De­cem­ber, 2019, off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer PC Nicholas Vic­tor was shot and killed while moon­light­ing as se­cu­ri­ty at the su­per­mar­ket. His li­censed pis­tol was al­so stolen at the time.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp yes­ter­day morn­ing, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed the in­ci­dent.

“A co-or­di­nat­ed man­hunt is cur­rent­ly un­der­way for ad­di­tion­al sus­pects. I want to ex­tend my deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues of PC Dou­glas, and as­sure the pub­lic that the TTPS will pro­vide fur­ther up­dates as ad­di­tion­al ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able,” Gue­var­ro said.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, act­ing ASP Ish­mael Pitt, con­demned Dou­glas’ mur­der but de­clined to com­ment di­rect­ly on is­sues re­lat­ing to of­fi­cers work­ing as part-time se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers pri­vate­ly for ex­tra mon­ey.

He, how­ev­er, hoped that of­fi­cers would be ad­e­quate­ly com­pen­sat­ed to avoid un­nec­es­sary risks.

“We con­tin­ue to re­it­er­ate the call for po­lice of­fi­cers to be ap­pro­pri­ate­ly re­mu­ner­at­ed giv­en the type of du­ties that we per­form and as such, when po­lice of­fi­cers are prop­er­ly well re­mu­ner­at­ed and the terms and con­di­tions are such that re­flect a mod­ern or­gan­i­sa­tion, we are quite cer­tain that our of­fi­cers would be in a po­si­tion to make the best de­ci­sions re­gard­ing their wel­fare and well-be­ing,” Pitt said.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day, Re­gion III Homi­cide Bu­reau of­fi­cers were seen vis­it­ing near­by hous­es and busi­ness­es to try and speak with res­i­dents while can­vass­ing for ev­i­dence and CCTV footage.

Ven­dors from a near­by pro­duce stall told Guardian Me­dia they be­lieve a stray bul­let from the shoot­ing hit one ta­bles where they place their goods, as they no­ticed part of the wood splin­tered when they ar­rived for work.

“We left this good yes­ter­day and look at what hap­pened here. It’s sad what hap­pened where some­one lost their life, but God was good for us, be­cause this hap­pened at a time when none of us were out here,” they said.

“Some­times I have my chil­dren here and all kind of thing, but for­tu­nate­ly this hap­pened late at night.”

One woman, who asked not to be named, said one of her rel­a­tives re­called hear­ing close to 12 shots some­time around 11 pm, but did not know some­one died un­til they awoke yes­ter­day.

“We lived around the cor­ner and we heard those shots. It wasn’t a nice thing at all, but what can you do?” she said.

“Around 11 o’clock is a ghost town here. The gro­cery is closed, the ven­dors don’t be open, the snow cone man doesn’t be out. It’s dan­ger­ous on this side.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent lament­ed the spate of vi­o­lence, not­ing that busi­ness­es and peo­ple in the area were of­ten tar­get­ed by out­siders, adding that while she did not hear the gun­fire, she was trou­bled by Dou­glas’ mur­der.

“By 9 pm I am in my house. I know that vi­o­lence and crime can come to you any­where, but this crime is com­plete­ly out of hand.

“Look, just the oth­er day they beat up and steal a chain from a ven­dor up the road there and they held some­body with a gun. Where are these young peo­ple get­ting these guns from?”

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Dou­glas Der­rick Road, Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas, the com­mu­ni­ty where Dou­glas was last known to have lived, but sev­er­al res­i­dents were un­able to con­firm ex­act­ly where he lived, not­ing the size of the road.

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion III Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.