Four youths killed in shootout with cops

Four youths were killed in a shootout with police yesterday, after they hijacked a taxi in Central Trinidad. When the smoke cleared, three bullet-ridden bodies, two of whom were aged 15, and the other 16  were found in the taxi which they had hijacked shortly after 8 pm Monday night. The other youth, aged 20, was slumped on the road next to the stolen taxi. Police, who seized two revolvers and a cutlass, identified the youths as: Dennis Roopchand, 20, of 239 Union Village, Felicity, his next-door neighbour, Ravi Boodoo, 15, Kevin Singh, 16, of Main Road, Felicity and Prem Narad, 15, of Coconut Drive, Felicity. Narad was a Form Two student of the Carapichaima Junior Secondary School. 

According to police reports, taxi driver Jairam Raghoo, 47, of Main Road, Felicity, was plying his Laurel Medalist taxi for hire on the Felicity/Chaguanas route, when he stopped at Petersfield Village on the Main Road leading to Chaguanas, to pick up a female passenger. The report stated that four youths, standing on a nearby corner flagged down Raghoo. The youths boarded the taxi, but according to the report, one of them placed a cutlass to Raghoo’s neck. The report said one of the other youths pointed a gun at Raghoo’s head and announced a hold-up. Raghoo was ordered by the men to drive to a nearby cemetery, where they proceeded to rob him and the female occupant in the car of cash and other items. However, police said Raghoo reportedly put up a fight while he and the female passenger were being robbed. According to the report, the men planassed and chopped the taxi driver about his body. Raghoo was chopped on the back, left forearm and fingers.

The men bundled Raghoo into the trunk of his car, police said, before driving to the Waterloo Cremation Site. The report stated the men threw Raghoo into the nearby sea in an attempt to drown him. Raghoo managed to escape by swimming along the shore, and, according to the report, when he emerged from the water close to the cremation site, he flagged down a marked police jeep. PCs Bissoon and Mc Donald of the Couva CID, were on patrol in the area at the time. Raghoo told the policemen about the incident. The officers took the taxi driver to the Couva District Hospital where he was treated and discharged. Policemen attached to the Crime Suppression Unit (CSU) in San Fernando had been alerted via radio and around 9 pm, the lawmen, in a white station wagon, spotted Raghoo’s vehicle on Waterloo Road heading east. Police reported that on approaching a stretch of road at Bank Village in Carapichaima, they were fired upon by the occupants of the Medalist. The CSU officers responded and a chase ensued.

Police said the driver of the stolen car ran the traffic light at St Mary’s Junction in Freeport in an attempt to outrun the CSU officers, but it collided with a white Nissan Sentra, proceeding south along the Old Southern Main Road. The police vehicle rammed into the back of the stolen car, and it came to a standstill. The policemen were greeted by gunfire, during which one of the occupants in the Medalist attempted to escape on foot. Police said he was fatally shot during the exchange. The report stated that when the CSU officers approached the crashed taxi, they found the three young men dead in the car. The District Medical Officer, Dr Khatri, was called to the scene and ordered the bodies removed to the Forensic Science Centre. A party of senior officers, including  ACP Oswyn Allard, ACP James Philburt, Snr Supt Barnett Mayers, Supt Rampersad, Supt Michael Lambert, ASP Archibald, acting Insp Clyde Phillip, Cpl Lawrence, Cpl George Cudjoe and Cpl Aguillera, visited the scene.

Roopchand’s mother, Roseanne, told Newsday she spoke to her son before he was killed. According to Roseanne, her son had left home to attend a Ramleela celebration in the district. “My child is a good boy. He doesn’t lime anywhere, but I just don’t know what went wrong,” the grief-stricken mother said. Singh’s sister, Dianne Soogrim, told Newsday, “My brother was a quiet, good little boy.” She said Singh worked for a doctor as a handyman and “was pretty much occupied.” However, she said her brother began to socialise with one of the youths killed, whom she described as “bad company.” Miranda Narad, 18-year-old sister of Prem, expressed disgust at how the deaths occurred.