The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

POLICE are investigating the circumstances surrounding a shooting that left an off-duty officer in hospital.

Chief Superintendent Clayton Fernander told The Tribune yesterday that the officer was shot in the right hand and “lost a lot of blood” as a result.

However, he said police were still investigating the particulars surrounding the incident.

According to police reports, shortly after 1.30am on Saturday, police responded to calls about a traffic accident at East Street South. When police arrived on the scene, they saw a vehicle on the side of the road with extensive damages.

The officers, on examining the inside of the vehicle, found an off-duty police constable suffering from a gunshot wound. The officer was rushed to hospital, where he remains in critical condition.

It is unclear how the officer was wounded.

In January, The Tribune reported that Police Constable 3347 Demetrius Taylor was recovering in hospital after being shot in the back of his head in Nassau Village.

At the time, Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Ferguson said the 29-year-old off duty detective had been driving on Alexandria Boulevard around 3.20pm when two men in a black vehicle pulled up behind him and opened fire, resulting in the officer being shot in the back of his head.

Police officers in the area came to his assistance, as did EMS personnel, who took him to hospital where he was rushed into surgery.

That shooting came over a month after another policeman, Sergeant 145 Wayne Rolle, was shot in his head and killed while sitting in his car with a female friend at Durham Street off Montrose Avenue. He was off duty at the time.