Increased patrols bring calm to Cunupia after fatal shootout

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

As po­lice con­tin­ued their search yes­ter­day for two re­main­ing sus­pects linked to home in­va­sions in parts of Cunu­pia, res­i­dents said they felt more at ease amid fre­quent pa­trols and height­ened se­cu­ri­ty ac­tiv­i­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice me­dia re­lease, eight armed men robbed a 70-year-old farmer at his home around 3.30 am on Sat­ur­day, es­cap­ing with $1,120. A re­port was made and of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, the Home In­va­sion Team (HIT), and sol­diers from the Reg­i­ment were de­ployed.

Po­lice lat­er tracked and in­ter­cept­ed the sus­pects along Ram­nar­ine Trace, off Es­mer­al­da Road. Dur­ing the pur­suit, the men re­port­ed­ly opened fire on of­fi­cers, who re­turned fire, killing three sus­pects and ar­rest­ing two oth­ers.

Hours lat­er, short­ly af­ter mid­day, an­oth­er sus­pect was shot and killed along an agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess road off Ram­nar­ine Trace.

Sources said in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still work­ing to con­firm the iden­ti­ties of the de­ceased sus­pects as of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, as en­quiries con­tin­ued.

When Guardian Me­dia Ltd re­turned to Ram­nar­ine Trace yes­ter­day, a small­er but vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence re­mained in the area, with pa­trols con­tin­u­ing along back roads and tracks link­ing fields and aban­doned lots.

One re­tiree, a life­long res­i­dent of Es­mer­al­da Road, praised the po­lice re­sponse, say­ing it re­flect­ed a lev­el of ur­gency not al­ways seen in past in­ci­dents.

“I was re­al­ly proud with what I saw yes­ter­day. For years we kept com­plain­ing about this prob­lem, and now I think peo­ple fi­nal­ly see how se­ri­ous this en­tire sit­u­a­tion is,” he said.

“It can be re­al­ly fright­en­ing be­cause even if you keep to your­self, you’re not guar­an­teed to stay out of trou­ble.”

He said po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty con­tin­ued in­to yes­ter­day morn­ing but added that he felt re­as­sured rather than fear­ful.

“The place still hot. This morn­ing I went for dou­bles and I saw them in that trail over there. I came back lat­er and they were still there.

“I feel bet­ter know­ing they are here be­cause they know who and what they look­ing for.”

De­spite the on­go­ing search, no farm­ers or field work­ers were seen in the sur­round­ing agri­cul­tur­al lands.

A pro­duce ven­dor, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, al­so said the po­lice pres­ence was re­as­sur­ing and urged that such op­er­a­tions be main­tained.

He said he had wit­nessed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in the area but of­ten felt pow­er­less to in­ter­vene.

“Those fel­las over­do­ing it up here. They rob­bing peo­ple from Ra­goo­nanan Road all the way up to Es­mer­al­da,” he said.

“I go mar­ket from 11.30 pm and come home at 3 o’clock in the morn­ing, so I does be see­ing how all the men pass­ing, but I can’t do any­thing about it. I have to look to pro­tect my­self.”

He added that many res­i­dents ap­peared more re­laxed fol­low­ing the po­lice re­sponse.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion were en­cour­aged by the sup­port shown by res­i­dents.

He said food and re­fresh­ments, in­clud­ing roti, chan­na, soft drinks, and pro­duce, were pro­vid­ed to of­fi­cers dur­ing the search.

“It’s not every day you see that kind of gen­uine ap­pre­ci­a­tion, and we are grate­ful for that sup­port,” the of­fi­cer said.

Po­lice have re­port­ed­ly dubbed the group the “tall boots crew” due to their use of tall rub­ber gar­den­ing boots while mov­ing through fields and dense veg­e­ta­tion. Of­fi­cers al­so re­cov­ered two pairs of such boots, be­lieved to have been dis­card­ed by sus­pects in an at­tempt to evade de­tec­tion.

Search op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued across sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties in­to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Pres­i­dent of the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASTT), Daryl Ram­per­sad, said he wel­comed the swift po­lice re­sponse but warned that the in­ci­dent high­light­ed the on­go­ing risks faced by farm­ers.

He said while neigh­bour­hood watch ini­tia­tives should be en­cour­aged, stronger and more sus­tained law en­force­ment pres­ence was need­ed.

“As farm­ers, we have been ask­ing for the longest while for firearms. Some of us have large acreages, we suf­fer from prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, and we op­er­ate in the wee hours of the morn­ing,” he said.

“It is very dan­ger­ous pro­duc­ing crops, go­ing to mar­ket, and re­turn­ing home at two or three o’clock in the morn­ing. We are call­ing for more po­lice pres­ence and even, in some ar­eas, the in­volve­ment of the Reg­i­ment as well.”