Man wanted for cop’s murder dies in Matura shoot-out

Ralph Ban­warie

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

A man want­ed in con­nec­tion with the mur­der of po­lice con­sta­ble Romel Dou­glas was shot and killed by po­lice dur­ing an ex­change of gun­fire in Matu­ra on Tues­day night.

The de­ceased has been iden­ti­fied as 48-year-old Has­san John­son, al­so known as “H-Man.”

Po­lice said of­fi­cers from the East­ern Di­vi­sion re­ceived in­for­ma­tion on Tues­day about a sus­pi­cious man at Mo­ra Trace, Matu­ra. When of­fi­cers went to the area, how­ev­er, the man ran in­to a forest­ed area and es­caped.

Lat­er that night, po­lice re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that John­son was stay­ing at a house in the area.

Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and sur­round­ed the house, an­nounced their pres­ence and or­dered him to sur­ren­der.
Po­lice said John­son re­fused and opened fire at the of­fi­cers, who re­turned fire.

John­son was shot sev­er­al times and tak­en to San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, where he lat­er died.

A woman who al­leged­ly har­boured John­son was de­tained and is as­sist­ing po­lice with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Res­i­dents of Mo­ra Trace have since raised con­cerns about un­fa­mil­iar peo­ple re­port­ed­ly stay­ing in makeshift struc­tures in the area.

Dou­glas, 48, was killed on Ju­ly 28 while sit­ting in his car along South Bank Road, near Hy­draulic Trace, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni.
Po­lice said gun­men con­front­ed Dou­glas and he shot one of the men be­fore be­ing shot him­self. The in­jured sus­pect was tak­en to Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he lat­er died. He was iden­ti­fied as 19-year-old Adetole Am­mon of Print­eryville, Ari­ma.

At the time, po­lice were search­ing for two re­main­ing sus­pects in con­nec­tion with Dou­glas’ mur­der.
Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to John­son’s death and Dou­glas’ mur­der.