Nearly two months after a off-duty Trinidad and Tobago police constable was gunned down during an alleged robbery attempt, the last two primary suspects in his killing were killed in an early morning shootout with law enforcement in Maloney. The fatal confrontation brings the total number of suspects linked to the high-profile killing who have died in police encounters to four.
The two suspects killed on Thursday were identified by police as Tyreek De Coteau and Shakeel Martin. Following the shootout, both men were rushed to the Arima Hospital, where medical staff pronounced them dead immediately upon their arrival. Law enforcement officials confirmed that illegal firearms were recovered from the confrontation site after the encounter ended. The large-scale operation was led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) Suzette Martin, carried out by a specialized team of officers from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS).
The deadly police operation marked the final major breakthrough in a manhunt launched after the July 28 killing of 48-year-old PC Romel Kerry Douglas, an officer assigned to the Four Roads Police Station. Douglas was off-duty when the attack unfolded around 11:05 p.m. that night, as he sat in his parked vehicle at the intersection of Hydraulic Trace and Caroni South Bank Road in Kelly Village, Caroni. According to police accounts, a white Nissan Tiida pulled up alongside Douglas’ car, and the people inside the vehicle initiated an attempted armed robbery.
A violent exchange of gunfire broke out between the suspects and Douglas, who was licensed to carry a personal firearm. Douglas was struck multiple times during the shootout; when first responders arrived at the scene roughly 10 minutes later, they found him dead inside his vehicle. Investigators confirmed that Douglas’ own licensed weapon was stolen by the suspects during the attack. One of the would-be robbers, 19-year-old Adetola Ammon from Arima, was also killed in the exchange — police have concluded Ammon was shot dead by one of his own accomplices during the chaos of the attack. The suspects’ getaway Nissan Tiida was later found abandoned nearby, prompting TTPS to launch an immediate, widespread manhunt for the remaining co-conspirators.
The third suspect, 18-year-old Hassan “H-Man” Johnson, a resident of Arima who had been hiding from authorities since the killing, was shot dead in a separate police confrontation on August 11. Police tracked Johnson to a two-bedroom home at the 7 3/4-mile mark on Main Road, Mora Trace, Matura, where he was staying at his girlfriend’s residence. A joint team of officers from the TTPS Home Invasion Team, Special Investigations Unit, multiple divisional gang units, the Deputy Commissioner’s operations team, and support personnel from the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force surrounded the property before moving in. When officers breached the home’s eastern entrance, police said Johnson opened fire on the team first, prompting officers to return fire and strike him multiple times. Johnson was transported to the Sangre Grande Hospital and pronounced dead at approximately 11:55 p.m. that night. Two other people — a 19-year-old man and Johnson’s girlfriend — were inside the home during the operation but escaped without injury, and were taken into custody for questioning.
With the deaths of De Coteau and Martin, all four suspects identified by police in connection with Douglas’s killing have now died in shooting incidents. Douglas was laid to rest on August 6 following a public funeral service held at the Morvant Central Community Centre on Cipriani Street in Morvant. During the memorial service, loved ones and colleagues remembered Douglas as a devoted family man who prioritized his loved ones above all else.
In a separate, unrelated incident that unfolded hours later on the same day in Carapichaima, a third man was fatally shot by TTPS officers after he opened fire on a team investigating extortion allegations. The Anti-Extortion Unit was executing an investigation at a residential property on Palm Avenue in the Orangefield Settlement when the confrontation erupted at approximately 4 a.m. According to official police reports, as officers entered the property, one of the occupants opened fire on the team. Officers returned fire, striking the 36-year-old occupant, later identified as Riyad Sean Ali. Ali, who was hit in the chest, was transported to the Chaguanas District Health Facility where he was pronounced dead. A firearm was recovered at the scene of the confrontation. When officers cleared the home after the shootout, they found Ali’s elderly mother hiding in one of the bedrooms unharmed. Ali’s brother was taken into custody to assist with ongoing investigations, police confirmed.