Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T com­mit­tee mem­ber, David Lee Kim, yes­ter­day called on the po­lice to go af­ter the gangs at San­ta Rosa Heights, Ari­ma, who have been ter­ror­is­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and tar­get­ing Chi­nese busi­ness­es.

He made the call in the wake of a re­port in yes­ter­day's T&T Guardian, head­lined "San­ta Rosa Ter­ror," which high­light­ed at­tacks against Chi­nese busi­ness own­ers and res­i­dents by armed crim­i­nals in their com­mu­ni­ty.

The crimes, the res­i­dents claimed, have been tak­ing place right un­der the noses of po­lice at the Pin­to Road Post, forc­ing them to live like pris­on­ers in their homes and un­der siege.

With­in hours of the res­i­dents' com­plaint be­ing high­light­ed, of­fi­cers yes­ter­day ini­ti­at­ed reg­u­lar pa­trols for which they were com­mend­ed by San­ta Rosa mi­ni mart op­er­a­tor Rose Fer­di­nand.

She said in an hour she had seen two ve­hi­cles on pa­trol while armed of­fi­cers were seen walk­ing around.

"We are feel­ing a sense of re­lief now that the po­lice are on pa­trol in the area," said Fer­di­nand, who thanked the T&T Guardian for its in­ter­ven­tion.

The pa­trols came af­ter As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Su­per­dense Per­sas, promised to look in­to the po­lice's fail­ure to guard the com­mu­ni­ty.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Lee Kim said it was no se­cret that Chi­nese busi­ness­es were be­ing tar­get­ed. He re­ferred to two Chi­nese busi­ness own­ers–Chong Cato and Hi Hong Huang–who were killed months apart by gun­men.

"Chi­nese peo­ple have be­come an easy tar­get by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. They are not known to re­tal­i­ate or fight back when un­der the bar­rel of a gun or be­ing beat­en mer­ci­less­ly," Lee Kim said.

By na­ture, Lee Kim said Chi­nese were not con­fronta­tion­al and were qui­et peo­ple.

"How can you re­tal­i­ate when crim­i­nals are com­ing at you with guns and cut­lass­es? They would eas­i­ly give in be­cause they don't want to be killed.

"I feel sor­ry for them (Chi­nese) but what can we do? There is so much crime in the coun­try and to me the po­lice have their hands filled," he said.

Un­able to say how many Chi­nese busi­ness­es op­er­ate in Trinidad, Lee Kim said in the last two years there had been a pro­lif­er­a­tion of restau­rants, su­per­mar­kets and casi­nos set up by Chi­nese in the coun­try, which crim­i­nals view as a "gold mine" and "easy pick­ings."

Lee Kim said cit­i­zens have of­ten seen ban­dits beat­ing, hu­mil­i­at­ing and man­han­dling Chi­nese na­tion­als dur­ing rob­beries.

"We have seen it many times on Crime Watch and Be­yond The Tape. It's a fright­en­ing sit­u­a­tion not on­ly for the Chi­nese. The crime sit­u­a­tion is re­al­ly bad. We hope the po­lice catch these per­pe­tra­tors and go af­ter the gangs that are cre­at­ing hav­oc in the com­mu­ni­ty," he said.

May­or wor­ried

Ari­ma May­or George Hadeed al­so called on the po­lice to step up pa­trols in the area to al­lay the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and res­i­dents' fears.

He said while the po­lice gen­er­al­ly worked in Ari­ma, it was em­bar­rass­ing to read that a crime had been com­mit­ted 50 feet from the Pin­to Road Po­lice Post and the po­lice were un­aware of it.

"This is wor­ry­ing. It just goes to show that the crim­i­nals have no re­spect for the law or no one," he added.

Hadeed felt the Chi­nese were be­com­ing prime tar­gets be­cause of the lu­cra­tive busi­ness­es they op­er­at­ed.

He said many of them have opened casi­nos and su­per­mar­kets which gave the crim­i­nals the per­cep­tion they walked around with huge sums of cash.

Al­though San­ta Rosa did not fall with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of his bor­ough but the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Hadeed said as may­or the rob­beries were of great con­cern to him.

"It ap­pears that the Chi­nese are be­ing tar­get­ed re­cent­ly in term of rob­beries. A fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion should take place to un­der­stand why this has been hap­pen­ing.

"Yes, crime is a prob­lem in Trinidad. We have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing this prob­lem for a num­ber of years. I am sure the po­lice are try­ing their best since no one can pre­dict when a crime will take place but at the same time they need to step up their pa­trols," Hadeed added.

He said while it would be im­pos­si­ble to put law of­fi­cers at every street cor­ner, they need­ed to be more vis­i­ble.

Hadeed ad­mit­ted he had not re­ceived any re­ports of Chi­nese be­ing robbed out­side of San­ta Rosa.

"They (Chi­nese) cre­ate em­ploy­ment and I would sup­pose they con­tribute to­wards pay­ing tax­es and help­ing with the econ­o­my," he added.

Asked if the crim­i­nals were win­ning the war on crime, Hadeed said: "I would not say they are win­ning the war but as it is now, I would say they are ahead."

He said it was time for our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to be re­vamped.

Sev­er­al calls to Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Win­ston Boodoo's cell­phone yes­ter­day went unan­swered.

Flash­back

In Jan­u­ary, Chi­nese busi­ness­man Chong Cao was gunned down out­side his busi­ness place Zhong Guo Cheng Chi­nese Restau­rant and Bar at Tumpuna Road, La Hor­quet­ta. Cao, 30, was shot three times in the face by a lone gun­man.

Last April, Hi Hong Huang, 35, was fa­tal­ly shot as he strug­gled with two ban­dits dur­ing a rob­bery out­side his busi­ness, Hap­pi­ness Su­per­mar­ket, Curepe.

In 2012, Chi­na-born busi­ness­man, Yang Jiang Hua, 60, and his wife, Wu Xiu Hua, al­so died at the hands of gun­men who en­tered their Tiger's Chi­nese Restau­rant and Bar in Cunu­pia.