Car bandits in shootout with cops

ST JOSEPH police were engaged in a high-speed chase and shootout with two men who stole a car from a taxi-driver in Maracas/St Joseph and later crashed the vehicle into a drain at a dead-end road in El Dorado on Saturday night.

According to police reports, around 10.50 pm, Joel Legere, 30, of Alta Garcia Gardens, Maracas/St Joseph was plying his car for hire along the St Joseph-Curepe taxi route. He picked up two men and a woman at Curepe Junction, all of whom asked to be taken to various locations in St Joseph. On reaching Acono Road, Maracas, the two male passengers pulled out guns and ordered Legere to pull to the side of the road. They then forced Legere and the female passenger out of the car and sped off. Another motorist who saw what happened, telephoned St Joseph police and reported the incident. An All Points Bulletin (APB) was issued advising all patrolling police officers to be on the look-out for the car thieves. When the bandits reached the Eastern Main Road near St Joseph police station, they were spotted by a team of St Joseph CID officers led by Insp Michael Modeste and including Sgt Don Lezama, PC Remy, WPC Yearwood and PC Bayne who were on patrol.

The officers engaged the suspects in a high speed chase along the Eastern Main Road (EMR) going through Curepe, St Augustine, Tunapuna and El Dorado. When the officers and suspects reached El Dorado, there was an exchange of gunfire. The suspects swung off the EMR in El Dorado and onto Govia Road which is a dead-end. The suspects crashed the car into a drain and managed to escape on foot. Police fingerprint experts later “dusted” the car and reported finding workable fingerprint evidence which will now be compared with prints of suspects stored in the Fingerprint Computer File (FCF) at Police Headquarters, to see if they can find a match. Up to late yesterday no arrests had been made and St Joseph CID officers are continuing investigations.