The scourge of home invasions and robberies continue to affected rich and poor people alike in society.
No one is spared, not even the elite in society who can afford the very best in security measures, private security, who live in affluent gated communities or high-walled, veritable fortresses.
A person’s home is supposed to be their refuge, their sacred space; their castle.
When criminals breach this personal space using brutality and violence to terrorise hapless victims, driving fear into their hearts and making them feel that they are no longer safe in their own homes, they can literally kill homeowners. The pervading fear and stress can be just as deadly as if they had used guns, knives and other weapons.
Guardian Media spoke to several victims who survived the trauma of home invasions and robberies, how their lives have changed since and how some of them found the strength and resolve in dealing with the harrowing ordeal and ensure they are prepared if another such attack should arise.
Their names have been changed for their protection.
“After traumatic home invasion, female relative hired off-duty police”
I heard my three dogs barking around 4.40 am and a metallic noise not knowing the bandits were using a car jack to pry the burglar-proofing apart in the living room.
I looked through my bedroom window and saw a tall guy passing and started banging my window making noise to wake up my family.
When I came out my room there was a bandit already in the living room armed with a gun in his hand.
It was still dark, the bandit didn’t see me, only my female relative. I bolted for my room and used my bed to barricade the door and called the police.
The interaction with the WPC was terrible, she was only asking a set of unnecessary questions and I told her the robbery was taking place at that moment.
Three bandits came through the burglar-proofing, they forced my female relative to open the front door and gate to let in three more of the heavier-built bandits.
They tried to push the door open to get to me, lucky thing I had no money, if they got hold of me they would have beaten the daylights out of me.
One of my male relatives received a shallow stab in his back with a knife which required stitches at the hospital and although another relative had training in the Chinese army he was outnumbered and beaten up and both were robbed of a quantity of money.
They also forced my female relative to hand over some money in a room and they even took my seven-year-old niece’s birthday money.
After the bandits left, two jeep loads of police officers arrived, if they came earlier they would have caught them.
The criminals came in two white Tiidas, one was parked and the other was patrolling the area for police.
They also poisoned the dogs, and took two phones, my relative used another phone to track the stolen phones and when the police reached the bandits there was a shootout and the investigating officer said one bandit was killed on site and another died in the ICU from extensive gunshot injuries.
We gave our written statements to the police and the bandits were identified from our CCTV images.
Nights after that traumatic home invasion, we were getting up to check the security monitor, another female relative was a nervous wreck and hired off-duty police.
My relatives eventually moved out of my house to a gated apartment community, we don’t stay in the house at night and go over to sleep by them.
People ask why we don’t go back into our own house but we still have a fear of more bandits coming and there’s the stereotype that Chinese have money.
The police told us that the bandits were part of a Muslim gang and justified their home invasions and assaults on members of the public because their business or activities went against the teachings of their faith.
“My husband died from strees watching out for bandits”
My husband died from stress staying up at night watching out for bandits with no sleep from the constant fear of break-ins we suffered over the years, the same effect as if the criminals used a gun or knife to kill him.
I was in Canada for surgery in 2019, my neighbour had a break-in first, the four bandits broke into our house using a car jack.
Our neighbour showed us his camera footage, our camera was down, the bandits jumped his wall, and ransacked our house.
When my husband came home after work, he called his brother-in-law, and they checked the rooms and called the police; when you tell them ‘break in’, the police won’t come right away.
On another break-in a WPC told my daughter the place dark, rain falling, there was no police car to come at 4 am, she wouldn’t be able to make out the house number and they were supposed to call another station.
My brother lost his patience still waiting for the police and told my husband he could weld the burglar-proofing for him.
From that night my husband never slept. Whole night he sat down by the front door watching everything and I couldn’t help him over there and I’m only crying.
I was finally allowed to return home and spent two weeks in quarantine. From Christmas, the bandits kept coming.
The repeated break-ins took a toll on my husband’s health and his nerves, he became jumpy and when I came home from Canada he felt better having someone to keep him company.
Before I came home he hired security, but after one week he couldn’t afford them, because of the COVID-19 lockdown.
He used the money to build the wall high like a jail, replaced the camera system, installed motion sensors, lights, remote-controlled gates and for my surgery and our business was closed for almost a year.
His health continued to deteriorate. He started to hallucinate about seeing people in the yard, paranoia and depression set in following another robbery and the poisoning of their dogs the following day.
I came home from work on March 2, last year when he said he wasn’t feeling too well and I found him dead in his bed.
Even after his death the bandits still kept coming, they tried with a bolt cutter. I was at work and we got a notification on our cellphones about the break-in via the security system.
My son used his phone to yell at the bandits through the security system. He said he was calling the police and they panicked and ran away.
The only consolation was the bandits on the last occasion crashed their vehicle and were caught by the police.
“I suffered from depression”
I still have flashbacks after four masked bandits broke into my house with guns, knives and cutlasses a year ago around 4 am asking where’s the money and beating and kicking me.
They tied my hands and feet and gagged my mouth, ransacking the house.
They kept threatening to kill me put a knife to my throat and took my power tools, hand tools, televisions, stereos, CDs, DVDs, computer, laptops, video camera and recording equipment
They tried to steal the car but they couldn’t find the key to open the garage.
I never lived in the house again, I rented it out and found another place to live.
I also suffered from depression and took medication for six months but stopped, it did help me during that period.
“Vigilant at all times”
I did physical adjustments to the yard after the home invasion.
I trimmed down a lot of the garden to be more visible from outside, and reinforced the burglar-proofing to be more secure against car jacks.
I installed a gate at the side of the property so when driving in the entire frontage is viewable, nobody can hide at the side of the house.
I installed wall spikes along the entire perimeter of the property, basically, nobody must be able to jump or climb into the property and if they did cannot hide in the yard.
I double-checked our existing burglar alarm, CCTV camera system and yard dusk-to-dawn lighting.
Our behaviours also have had to change to be vigilant at all times when leaving and entering the property, we always check before entering for any strange cars on the street.
After experiencing a home invasion nobody wants to live in a property where anybody could jump over the wall under no circumstances.
Bought a an American Colt .45 pistol to defend himself and family
I get fed up getting rob and beat up, the final straw was when the criminals put a knife to my son’s throat, point knife and cutlass at my grandson and beat my wife at my bar, I buy a Brazilian copy of the American Colt .45 pistol to defend himself and his family.
I paid $15,000 for the gun from a fisherman who have a contact in Guyana and he smuggle it in from Brazil. My grandson was running around in the shop behind the counter with me when three bandits came in around 6 pm with knife and cutlass.
I pulled out my gun and let go a shot behind them and they run, but I didn’t hit any of them.
Now the criminals know I have a gun and was not afraid to use it and they not coming back.
Robin Dass
bar owner
Penal
‘I was shot, robbed’
I get gun butt in my face and head and a hairline fracture over my left eye, shot in the leg and robbed of $63,000 cash by four bandits with guns dressed in green CEPEP uniforms two years ago.
I was frighten for another hold up, the police are unreliable, my children or wife might get kidnapped or harmed, and I bought a Smith & Wesson 5906 9mm pistol from a smuggler from Venezuela for $13,000.
I submit my application for a Firearm User’s Licence (FUL) to the Commissioner of Police, but still waiting years.
My life and family more important than criminals.
John Grant
Graphics designer
Felicity
‘I loaded every room in the house with bladed weapons’
I got boarded in my house by three bandits who threatened my wife with knives, I ran into a corridor where I had a hockey stick hidden and charged them and they ran out my house. After that incident, I surrounded the house with pebbles, so that anyone walking on them would make a crunching noise, CCTV cameras and I loaded every room in the house with bladed weapons, hockey sticks, batons, stick fighting poui sticks, and everyday items that the bandits would overlook as weapons.
Janet Murphy
Retiree, 74
Mt Lambert
Criminals timing police patrols
I went to the Aranguez Health Centre and was walking through the Aranguez Savannah to reach home in Mt Lambert around 11 am between the entrance of Second Avenue and the Aranguez villas.
A tall, dark-complexioned man of Indian descent, in his late 20s-early 30s with a scar over his right eye in a red jersey grabbed my lunch bag.
He was thrown off by how I reacted; I was screaming down the place and swung my lunch bag at the bandit.
He grabbed the bag and told me all he wanted was the money and I won’t get hurt.
I let go of my bag as I can’t fight with him, he took whatever small amount of cash I had and threw my bag back at me and he ran off in the Aranguaez/El Socorro direction and I ran home.
Since that incident, I changed the time I walk through the savannah as it’s very lonely with no people running or exercising at that time and I’m more aware of my surroundings and paying more attention to people’s faces.
I’m glad the lighting in the savannah is fixed, but criminals can hide behind the trees; so be vigilant and walk in groups.
The criminal elements get smart and time the police patrols, knowing they will be out early in the morning and not at lunchtime and most times when you hear about robberies in the savannah it’s often women who are the victims.
