Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A rob­bery in down­town Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day end­ed with the death of a sus­pect­ed ban­dit, af­ter his would-be vic­tim gained the up­per hand and shot him sev­er­al times.

Po­lice said a de­liv­ery dri­ver was mak­ing a drop-off in the area and was stand­ing near his ve­hi­cle at the cor­ner of Queen and Char­lotte streets just be­fore 1 pm when he was con­front­ed by three men, one of whom had a gun.

The ban­dits pushed the dri­ver to the ground. How­ev­er, the man kept his wits about him­self suf­fi­cient­ly enough to pull out his li­censed pis­tol and shot one of his at­tack­ers sev­er­al times, killing him.

The ban­dit’s iden­ti­ty re­mained un­con­firmed up to press time last night.

On see­ing their ac­com­plice shot, one of the ban­dits ran away along Queen Street and on­to Dun­can Street, while the oth­er ran through East­side Plaza, es­cap­ing.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene, sev­er­al shocked ven­dors looked on at the ban­dit’s bloody body on the pave­ment near the Bel­mont Taxi Stand.

Work­ers and man­agers from near­by va­ri­ety stores al­so looked on at the scene, as po­lice from the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion and the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), cor­doned off both streets as they wait­ed for crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors and a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer to con­firm the man’s death.

But even as the body lay a few feet away, sev­er­al ven­dors con­tin­ued to sell pro­duce to passers-by, who took some time to look at the scene be­fore con­tin­u­ing with their er­rands.

One woman said while she recog­nised the man as a chain snatch­er from down­town Port-of-Spain, she did not know his name and said she had re­peat­ed­ly warned him about his life choic­es.

A near­by pro­duce ven­dor told Guardian Me­dia she heard the gun­shots, but fo­cused on run­ning away from the sound of the gun­fire rather than look­ing to see the cause.

“I was deal­ing with a cus­tomer at the time but when I heard that, I just had to run,” she said.

“I didn’t both­er to stop or look or any­thing. Look how much peo­ple walk­ing up and down and these things hap­pen­ing in full view of every­one.”

While wait­ing, sev­er­al ven­dors of­fered to bring sheets to cov­er the man’s body. How­ev­er, po­lice at the scene said they could not do that as it would con­t­a­m­i­nate the crime scene.

Sev­er­al stores close to the scene closed their doors for the day as po­lice con­tin­ued their en­quiries.

As the crowd con­tin­ued to grow, cu­ri­ous on­look­ers record­ed videos and took their own pho­tos to share on so­cial me­dia, as they spoke among them­selves over what led to the killing.

One Char­lotte Street busi­ness own­er, Ar­lene Muham­mad, be­came emo­tion­al af­ter see­ing the man’s body and called on par­ents to do their part in pre­vent­ing their chil­dren from falling in­to crim­i­nal­i­ty.

“Many fa­thers is to blame be­cause you all not tak­ing a stand to bring chil­dren up in the fear of the law. Life is tem­po­rary, we here for a short time. Make up alyuh mind. Bring your chil­dren up to fear the Lord!” Muham­mad said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they col­lect­ed a state­ment from the de­liv­ery dri­ver and had viewed CCTV footage from a near­by lamp post as part of their en­quiry.

Of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.