An uniden­ti­fied man was killed by po­lice in Clax­ton Bay on Thurs­day.

He was the fifth man to be killed by po­lice with­in two days. Po­lice al­so re­cov­ered an AR-15 ri­fle.

Ini­tial re­ports stat­ed that at 9 pm on Thurs­day, of­fi­cers from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force were on pa­trol when they got in­for­ma­tion that men armed with firearms were trav­el­ling in a blue Hyundai H100 van along Dump Road.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ed to the Dump Road area, where they at­tempt­ed to stop a Hyundai H100 mo­tor ve­hi­cle but were al­leged­ly shot at.

The of­fi­cers re­turned fire, wound­ing one man. The in­jured man was tak­en to the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty for treat­ment, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Of­fi­cers re­cov­ered the AR-15 ri­fle at the scene of the shoot­ing.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent on Wednes­day, po­lice fa­tal­ly shot Sha­keem Nick­ie at Dan Kel­ly, East­ern Quar­ry, Laven­tille. Po­lice said they re­port­ed to a trou­ble call and found him chop­ping a man. He was shot af­ter re­port­ed­ly re­fus­ing to obey their com­mand to drop his weapon.

Six­teen hours ear­li­er, three men were killed by po­lice af­ter they al­leged­ly robbed a gro­cery in Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas. The men re­port­ed­ly opened fire on of­fi­cers while try­ing to make their es­cape. One of the men has since been iden­ti­fied as Raphael Gob­in.

Com­ment­ing on the killings on Thurs­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said it was as a re­sult of the po­lice go­ing af­ter crim­i­nals. He said the more po­lice en­gage crim­i­nals, the greater the chances of po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings.

Mean­while, the TTPS re­lease added that three sus­pects were ar­rest­ed, three firearms seized and mar­i­jua­na trees worth TT$1.5 mil­lion were de­stroyed by of­fi­cers dur­ing on­go­ing SoE op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed in the Cen­tral and South­ern Di­vi­sions on Thurs­day.

In the first in­ci­dent, of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit con­duct­ed an ex­er­cise at 12.30 am where they stopped a car along the Ca­roni South Bank Road with two male oc­cu­pants.

Fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions led the of­fi­cers to the St He­le­na home of one of the sus­pects, where they found a Smith and Wes­son re­volver loaded with three rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

A fe­male sus­pect who was in the house was ar­rest­ed, to­geth­er with the two male sus­pects.

In the South­ern Di­vi­sion, Task Force of­fi­cers, as­sist­ed by of­fi­cers of the Princes Town, St Madeleine, Table­land, Bar­rack­pore, Moru­ga and St Mary’s po­lice sta­tions, con­duct­ed an an­ti-crime op­er­a­tion in the Moru­ga and St Mary’s dis­tricts be­tween 3 pm and 7 pm.

At La Lune Road, they dis­cov­ered 150 ful­ly grown mar­i­jua­na trees worth an es­ti­mat­ed TT$1.5 mil­lion, and 200 seedlings. Of­fi­cers then con­duct­ed search­es at the Princes Town home of a male sus­pect, where they dis­cov­ered a shot­gun.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing in­to the above mat­ters.