Trinidad: Suspect, 15, held in mom’s house after deadly shooting

Nicholas Janette

(Trinidad Guardian) Of­fi­cers at Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion were caught by sur­prise on Thurs­day night when a man “soaked in blood” ran in­to the charge room scream­ing for help af­ter his friend was shot dead and he him­self had been shot sev­er­al times in the chest and arms dur­ing an ap­par­ent am­bush.

Po­lice have since ar­rest­ed a 15-year-old boy and have launched a man­hunt for a sec­ond sus­pect, whose names were giv­en to the po­lice by the man who ran in­to the sta­tion seek­ing help.

The dead man has been iden­ti­fied as 28-year-old Nicholas Janette, who had ad­dress­es at Bras­so-Seco, Paria and Knagg’s Street, Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 8.45 pm on Thurs­day Faraz Ram­per­sad, 29, of 22 Ar­buck­le Street, Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni, drove his black Hyundai Tuc­son in­to the sta­tion’s yard. Po­lice said Ram­per­sad, who was bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly from gun­shot wounds, ran in­to the charge room and begged for help as he dis­closed the names of the shoot­ers.

He told po­lice two gun­men opened fire on his ve­hi­cle while he was dri­ving along Emer­ald Dri­ve, La Paille Vil­lage, Ca­roni.

Po­lice of­fi­cers who ran out­side found Ram­per­sad’s bul­let-rid­dled ve­hi­cle parked in the yard close to the charge room with the dri­ver’s side front door wide open.

Po­lice al­so found Janette, who was seat­ed in the front pas­sen­ger seat, un­re­spon­sive.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Kris­tell Mose vis­it­ed the scene, viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Ram­per­sad was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mount Hope where he un­der­went surgery and was said to be ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion last evening.

A par­ty of of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 al­so vis­it­ed the scene and processed it.

Of­fi­cers al­so went to the scene of the shoot­ing where they re­cov­ered sev­er­al spent shells.

Hours lat­er, of­fi­cers from the Ca­roni sta­tion, act­ing on the in­for­ma­tion giv­en to them, were able to ar­rest the teenag­er at his home in the pres­ence of his moth­er.

Up to press time, the teen was still in po­lice cus­tody as­sist­ing po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Po­lice of­fi­cers are yet to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for the dead­ly shoot­ing.