AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A pen­sion­er who was at­tacked and beat­en with a wheel span­ner in an at­tempt­ed rob­bery in San­ta Cruz ear­ly yes­ter­day, turned the ta­bles on his at­tack­ers, when he used his li­censed firearm, killing two and send­ing a third in­to hid­ing

While the botched rob­bery has left res­i­dents of La Pas­to­ra Road wary, the hand­ful who spoke with re­porters de­scribed the res­i­den­tial area as “qui­et,” and said the in­ci­dent high­light­ed the need for the pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion to be­come a re­al­i­ty.

Po­lice said the 66-year-old vic­tim stopped at the spring near Zain­ool Mustapha Dri­ve around 5.45 am to wash his white Maz­da BT50 pick­up, as he was ac­cus­tomed to do­ing dai­ly.

But around 6.15 am, a grey Nis­san Cube drove past and pulled in front of his ve­hi­cle. Two men came out from the front and rear pas­sen­ger seats, leav­ing a masked dri­ver be­hind the wheel.

The two sus­pects point­ed a gun at the vic­tim and an­nounced a rob­bery, be­fore at­tack­ing him. Dur­ing the as­sault, the sus­pects de­mand­ed the keys to the vic­tim’s truck, which he threw in­to the near­by bush­es.

As the sus­pects re­trieved the key and ran around to the front of the truck, the vic­tim pulled his li­censed firearm and be­gan shoot­ing at them. He man­aged to shat­ter the back glass of the get­away car, hit­ting the dri­ver, and one of the sus­pects.

As the vic­tim screamed for help, the dri­ver pulled off but crashed in­to an em­bank­ment me­tres away from where the rob­bery took place.

The car stalled and the two ban­dits ran out and fled to­wards the riv­er through an open prop­er­ty op­po­site.

The vic­tim ran to­wards the idling car and reached in to as­sist the dri­ver, who had on a black face mask. He re­port­ed­ly be­gan cry­ing when he re­alised it was a woman who had been dri­ving.

While the po­lice were yet to con­firm the iden­ti­ties of the two sus­pects up to yes­ter­day, there were re­ports that iden­ti­fied the get­away dri­ver as Sue­vie Ghany, 29, of Gas­par­il­lo Road, San­ta Cruz. Ghany was said to be em­ployed with the San Juan/ Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, but chair­man Richard Wal­cott was un­able to con­firm this yes­ter­day.

The oth­er ban­dit who was killed was iden­ti­fied as Aaron Ramd­hanie, 23, Ghany’s nephew. He died while un­der­go­ing treat­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope.

Res­i­dents who came out to as­sist the vic­tim con­tact­ed the po­lice and the Emer­gency Health Ser­vices, who took the vic­tim to the same hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice said the third sus­pect re­mained in hid­ing up to yes­ter­day.

A long-time San­ta Cruz res­i­dent claimed the fam­i­ly of the sus­pects was well known to the po­lice, and the male sus­pect had been re­port­ing once a week to the po­lice sta­tion, as he was out on bail.

Res­i­dents call for le­gal guns

Mean­while, res­i­dents in San­ta Cruz said they will have to be more alert fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent.

One woman, whose prop­er­ty two of the three sus­pects ran through to ac­cess the drain which emp­ties in­to the San­ta Cruz Riv­er, said, “San­ta Cruz is nor­mal­ly a safe zone. With this hap­pen­ing this morn­ing, we will have to be on the alert.”

An­oth­er home­own­er said he had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing of the sort in the past 12 years he had been liv­ing in the area.

This was echoed by an­oth­er man, who ad­mit­ted shoot­ings/rob­beries/wound­ings were com­mon “low­er down in the vil­lage.”

The busi­ness­man said while this was a “one-off” sit­u­a­tion, he wel­comed the cur­rent thrust for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to be al­lowed to car­ry firearms to pro­tect them­selves and their prop­er­ty.

“The peo­ple in charge who want to ex­tend or open up the leg­is­la­tion for more peo­ple to have ac­cess to firearms, is re­al­ly a pos­i­tive thing be­cause it have law abid­ing cit­i­zens who pay­ing their tax­es and do­ing the right thing,” he said, adding, “They need to self-pro­tect in sit­u­a­tions like this and I for all, who have good char­ac­ters, busi­ness­men who pro­vid­ing jobs and em­ploy­ment, and those who pay­ing their tax­es...could have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­tect them­selves.”

A long-stay ten­ant who heard the gun­shots said while he had nev­er had an is­sue be­fore, the in­ci­dent meant there were cer­tain el­e­ments lurk­ing around.

Re­gard­ing the pro­posed stand-your-ground law, he was in agree­ment with law-abid­ing cit­i­zens be­ing able to de­fend them­selves.

“I do ap­prove of peo­ple who de­serve it, with the prop­er train­ing, to have it to de­fend them­selves and their prop­er­ty.”

He said the vic­tim in this in­stance had not left his home to do any­one any­thing, and could eas­i­ly have be­come a sta­tis­tic.

An­oth­er home­own­er be­lieved this was a crime of op­por­tu­ni­ty. He con­firmed the vic­tim had been left sad af­ter learn­ing the dri­ver of the get­away car was a woman.