分类： society

A brutal early-morning attack left a pregnant woman hospitalized in critical condition on Thursday, after a man she personally knew stabbed and cut her 15 times inside her second-floor apartment in the Mt Lambert neighborhood, according to local law enforcement and witness accounts.

Following the assault, the 31-year-old suspect, identified by police sources as a security officer assigned to the Customs and Excise Division at Port of Spain, locked himself inside the apartment and attempted to die by suicide. Police were able to detain him before he could succeed, and he remained in police custody overnight as investigators carried out questioning.

Neighbors in the apartment complex described the chaotic scene that unfolded shortly after 8 a.m. One resident, who spoke to local outlet the Express on condition of anonymity, said she first noticed something wrong when loud screams cut through the morning quiet. “I turned down my television and all I could hear was screaming, over and over,” she recalled. “When I peered out my window, I saw a woman running down the apartment stairs. I’d already heard she was pregnant, and that he had stabbed her multiple times.”

The witness added that the injured woman was clutching her abdomen heavily as blood seeped from her wounds. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairwell, she was able to take shelter in a ground-floor apartment occupied by an off-duty police officer. The attacker chased her down the stairs before retreating back to the upper floor, where neighbors heard him shouting demands for her to return to the original apartment.

Word of the attack spread quickly through the complex, and within minutes most residents had stepped outside their homes to observe the unfolding emergency. Someone contacted the Barataria Police Station, and three police vehicles were dispatched to the scene within a short response window.

Officers immediately prioritized getting the injured woman to care, transporting her to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope. As of Thursday night, medical teams reported her condition remained stable but critical. The victim’s family has declined to release her name to the public, with one relative noting she has always been an intensely private person.

While first responders tended to the victim, negotiators on scene attempted to convince the suspect to exit the locked apartment, but he refused all repeated requests to surrender. Officers ultimately used a crowbar to force entry into the unit, where they found the man mid-attempt to take his own life. They took him into custody immediately and transferred him to the Barataria Police Station for ongoing interrogation as of Thursday night.

At a formal admission ceremony held yesterday at Port of Spain’s Hall of Justice Convocation Hall, a senior High Court judge delivered a stark, principled address to 60 newly minted legal practitioners, calling on them to center professional integrity over personal ambition and financial profit. Justice Frank Seepersad emphasized that gaining entry to the Bar is far more than a capstone to years of academic study—it marks the assumption of a weighty, enduring public trust that underpins the nation’s democratic framework.

In his remarks, Justice Seepersad framed the legal profession as a foundational constitutional pillar tasked with upholding the rule of law. Attorneys, he explained, hold a uniquely critical role in defending individual rights, mediating societal disputes, and maintaining public faith in the entire justice system. “This admission is not simply the end of your academic journey,” he told the assembled group. “It is the start of a lifelong commitment to upholding the core principles that make fair administration of justice possible.”

The judge went on to note that while the law is designed to be applied evenly and without bias, its real-world impacts are deeply personal and far-reaching. “From today forward, you must understand that even when the law is applied neutrally, it is never neutral in its effects,” he said. “The work you do will shape legal outcomes, vindicate wronged parties, protect fundamental liberties, and alter the long-term trajectories of individual lives, families, local businesses and entire communities.”

Centering his address on the non-negotiable role of integrity in legal practice, Justice Seepersad stressed that this core value is not an abstract ideal—it is the very foundation of the profession. He pointed out that most clients seek legal support during periods of profound vulnerability, uncertainty and crisis, making unwavering honesty an absolute requirement rather than an optional virtue. He urged the new attorneys to base their counsel and practice on established law and ethical principle, rather than chasing convenience, public approval, or higher financial rewards. A lawyer’s professional reputation, he reminded them, is built one small decision at a time: from the arguments they present in court, to the fees they charge clients, to the way they treat the people who trust them with their most pressing legal problems.

Justice Seepersad also issued a clear warning that professional obligations will often clash with personal goals for advancement. “When those moments come, you must reject the temptation to trade your principles for short-term gain,” he said. “The fair administration of justice relies on lawyers who can exercise fairness, professional independence and sound judgment, even when that commitment requires personal sacrifice.”

He pushed back against the common framing of law as a pathway purely to wealth or social standing, arguing that the practice of law is fundamentally a vocation of public service. “The privilege of joining this profession must always come with the recognition that its core purpose can never be reduced to personal advancement, financial accumulation, or higher social status,” he said.

The judge noted that this cohort of new attorneys is entering the field at a moment when public trust in democratic institutions is being tested both locally and across the globe. Citizens increasingly turn to the justice system not just to resolve individual legal disputes, but to find reassurance that fairness, due process and the rule of law will be protected for all. A truly civil society, he argued, is sustained not only by economic growth or political power, but by the public’s confidence that core institutions will operate fairly, objectively, and in strict adherence to the law. Today, he added, many Trinbagonian citizens look to the courts not just for dispute resolution, but for stability, reassurance, and principled leadership that can hold national cohesion together.

In closing, Justice Seepersad urged every new attorney to guarantee that every client—regardless of social status, economic means, or personal circumstance—receives fair, ethical representation within the bounds of the law. Public confidence in democratic institutions depends entirely on legal professionals who carry out their duties with unwavering integrity, consistent competence, strict discipline, and professional independence, he said. “If we uphold these principles consistently and courageously, the administration of justice will remain an enduring safeguard of constitutional democracy, and a constant source of reassurance for the citizens it exists to serve.”

What was shaped up to be a carefully coordinated large-scale robbery has ended in an embarrassing failure for five masked suspects, after a critical piece of their stolen heavy equipment broke down just as they were poised to escape with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, newly released official police reports have confirmed.

The botched plot kicked off shortly before midnight on a Wednesday, when two on-duty security guards at Courland Beach Sports Arena were ambushed by two attackers clad in dark clothing. One of the assailants was armed with a loaded firearm, and the pair immediately restrained and searched the guards, demanding they hand over keys for a white Mitsubishi work truck and a yellow Caterpillar backhoe. When the guards explained they did not carry the keys for the equipment, the gunmen ransacked on-site storage and personal bags, before tying the guards’ hands and feet and forcing them to lie face-down on the ground. In a striking detail that has drawn public attention, one of the suspects was wearing a cape and hood that matched the iconic costume of comic book hero Batman. Before leaving the scene, the attackers warned the guards that a third accomplice was posted as a lookout along the nearby fence line, and that any attempt to move or call for help would be met with force.

Minutes after the assailants departed, the guards heard the stolen truck and backhoe being driven off the property. It took the guards nearly an hour to free themselves from their restraints; once loose, they counted their losses and found that only $200 in cash had been stolen from one guard’s personal wallet. The value of the two stolen pieces of equipment, however, far outstripped that small take: the Mitsubishi truck was appraised at $412,000, and the Caterpillar backhoe was valued at $850,000, bringing the total value of stolen property from the arena to $1.262 million.

Just over two hours after the initial ambush, at approximately 2:05 a.m., a resident living in an upper floor of the Supreme Plaza building in Plymouth, overlooking a First Citizens Bank ATM on Shelbourne Street, was jolted awake by a loud noise that sounded like a vehicle ramming into the commercial structure. Curious, the resident looked out from an upstairs office window and spotted a masked man operating the stolen backhoe, which had already smashed a large hole in the exterior wall that housed the ATM’s reinforced vault. Parked nearby, a white three-tonne truck – the same stolen Mitsubishi from the arena – waited with four more masked suspects, ready to carry the vault away.

The witness immediately placed a call to local law enforcement, and watched from his vantage point as the backhoe wrenched the entire ATM vault free from the building’s foundation. The gang then made repeated attempts to hook the heavy vault to the backhoe and lift it onto the waiting truck – but that is where their carefully laid plan fell apart. The backhoe had sustained critical structural damage during the wall-demolition process, and it completely broke down mid-lift, leaving the suspects with no way to load the 238,000 vault onto their escape truck.

Trapped and with police already en route, the five suspects were forced to abandon their entire operation. They fled the scene in the stolen Mitsubishi truck, leaving behind the disabled backhoe, the damaged building, and the untouched ATM vault that still held their intended target: $641,000 in cold, hard cash. Law enforcement later assessed the damage to the bank and plaza building, estimating that structural repairs would cost $185,000, plus an additional $40,000 to replace two destroyed First Citizens Bank signs.

After securing the scene, investigators pulled surveillance footage from nearby cameras that clearly captured the five masked suspects during the attempted robbery. Police confirmed this week that they have already identified two persons of interest connected to the failed heist, and the investigation remains active as officers work to track down the remaining suspects and recover the stolen Mitsubishi truck that the gang escaped in.