A security guard and Beetham Gardens residents yesterday challenged initial police reports that Constables Rachel George and Adrian Moreno were shot by gunmen as they went to investigate a series of robberies. Instead, they said the duo are lucky to be alive after they were shot in “friendly fire” during the incident at the Pensioners’ Quarters on Thursday night.
The incident, according to police, took place around 7.30 pm, after the two officers attached to the Western Division went to the area to investigate the theft of $100,000 worth of appliances from American Stores in St James.
In a media release issued yesterday, the police said, “Officers Moreno and George were among a party of officers who went to the Beetham area in search of suspects in relation to a recent break-in at American Stores, St James, and the theft of goods valued at $100,000, when the incident occurred. As is standard procedure where an officer sustains injury in the line of duty, an internal investigation will be conducted to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
The release did not indicate how the officers were shot or if they were shot by civilians or police. ASP Thomas of the Port-of-Spain Division is conducting investigations.
But security officers assigned to guard the residents in the Pensioners’ Quarters told the T&T Guardian yesterday that one officer opened fire on another, thinking it was the man they were chasing in the yard where the incident occurred. While relaying the information to the T&T Guardian, the officer was told by his colleague not to divulge any more information, a command the officer heeded. The T&T Guardian counted 14 holes in the wall of the guard booth where the shooting took place, with at least ten circled by investigators indicating bullet holes.
A few blocks away from the scene of the shooting, men liming at a bar, who did not want to be identified, responded rhetorically to questions raised by the T&T Guardian.
The men asked sarcastically how it was possible that two officers were shot, but residents returned a firearm belonging to one of the officers and not a single resident was arrested or a single home searched for the suspect/s.
One man shouted: “Is police who shoot police and they covering it up. They trying to make us look bad, but you tell me if it was somebody from the Beetham who shoot those officers how come nothing come out of it? After the shooting about 100 of them come, stay for half an hour, they get back the gun and they leave.”
Residents said the area where the shooting took place was poorly lit, so they could understand how the officers could have made the mistake. They said they returned the firearm because it was not theirs and they did not want police attention in the area, noting shooting police and keeping their gun would have caused them to “get real heat.”
Apart from the residents’ claim, police officers, on condition of anonymity, told the T&T Guardian the shooting was a case of “friendly fire.” Officers of the Inter Agency Task Force, who are permanently stationed near the entrance of the Pensioners’ Quarters, were hesitant to answer how the two officers were shot yesterday. The officers added that the two arrived in the Beetham Gardens and they were not aware of their presence so as to provide back-up.
WPC out hospital
Senior officers of the Port-of-Spain Division confirmed they were not aware of the officers’ presence in the division in order to provide them with the necessary support.
This is a breach of the Police Service standing orders and can be characterised as a case of neglect of duty, Police Service Social and Welfare Association president, Insp Michael Seales, said yesterday.
Seales said any divisional officer entering another division to conduct police work must do so with the go ahead from their respective divisional commander or another senior officer, and they must also inform the divisional commander or a senior officer of their intended presence.
“The association frowns on what happened last night (Thursday). Based on information coming to us, the association is very disturbed. The officers needed to be paraded and dispatched by a senior officer who would give them their mandate. It seems that was not done, because if it was done an occurrence like that would not have happened,” Seales said.
He said as new officers, however, both George and Moreno were entitled to “kind and sympathetic supervision”.
“These two officers are lucky to be alive today based on all extenuating circumstances, given the area that they went to. Thank God that no other major occurrence took place. The association abhors what took place,” Seales said.
In a brief telephone interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, George said she could not recall what happened, only that she fell in a nearby drain after she and her partner were shot.
George was discharged from the Port-of-Spain General Hospital just after lunch yesterday with a broken left leg, while Moreno remained warded in a serious condition after being shot in the neck and hand. Relatives of Moreno said the shot to the head was not just “a graze” but was a bit more serious, without divulging further information.
The police media release said Moreno’s attending physician has not recommended he undergo surgery as yet.