,An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh was robbed of a gold bracelet at gun­point, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials sent a warn­ing to the per­pe­tra­tors: “We are com­ing af­ter you.”

In a strong­ly word­ed voice note yes­ter­day, in which she urged the per­pe­tra­tors to sur­ren­der to the au­thor­i­ties, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­ves­ti­ga­tions and In­tel­li­gence, Suzette Mar­tin, con­firmed that sev­er­al per­sons have been as­sist­ing with the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Two men from St Paul Street, Port-of-Spain, were re­port­ed­ly de­tained and the blue Hyundai Elantra al­leged­ly used in the get­away on Tues­day was seized.

Con­demn­ing what she de­scribed as a brazen rob­bery, Mar­tin said, “To those who were in­volved in this crime, my best ad­vice to you is to turn your­self in with your at­tor­ney, rel­a­tive or friend. Rest as­sured, we are com­ing af­ter you.”

Mar­tin as­sured: “A thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion is al­ready un­der­way and all ef­forts are be­ing made to swift­ly ap­pre­hend those re­spon­si­ble.”

She added that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) would “en­sure that all in­volved in this crime face the full brunt of the law” and firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences, which are se­ri­ous crim­i­nal acts in­volv­ing vi­o­lence, “would not be tol­er­at­ed in any form.”

“The safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials, re­mains the ut­most pri­or­i­ty of the TTPS,” Mar­tin said.

Deyals­ingh, 66, was sit­ting out­side Nyabinghi Bar, at the cor­ner of Aber­crom­by and King Streets, St Joseph, at 4.55 pm on Tues­day when two men walked up. One of them placed a gun to his head and de­mand­ed that he hand over his gold be­ra.

An over­head se­cu­ri­ty cam­era at the in­ter­sec­tion is be­lieved to have cap­tured the rob­bery but po­lice of­fi­cers have re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al CCTV footage from busi­ness­es in the vicin­i­ty.

Re­ports of the rob­bery spread rapid­ly min­utes af­ter a record­ing was post­ed on so­cial me­dia, in which Deyals­ingh was heard telling the per­son on the oth­er end, af­ter let­ting them know what had hap­pened, “Just let­ting you know where crime has reached.”

Deyals­ingh reg­u­lar­ly meets and chats with con­stituents at the pop­u­lar lim­ing spot.

In the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, busi­ness­es were open as usu­al.

One woman said the in­ci­dent had left her shak­en and the busi­ness where she worked closed ear­li­er than usu­al on Tues­day fol­low­ing the rob­bery and opened ear­li­er yes­ter­day. She said the area had been qui­et with­in re­cent months.

The own­er of a small gro­cery near­by said he had been robbed in June.

“Up to now, no­body come to help me,” he said.

An­oth­er busi­ness own­er said the in­ci­dent was sad and scary but was the re­al­i­ty many cit­i­zens are liv­ing with dai­ly.

“Every day I go out there, there is a fear it could hap­pen to me. His ut­ter­ances show how far re­moved he is from re­al­i­ty right now. This is a reg­u­lar thing,” he said.

The busi­ness­man, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, com­mend­ed the po­lice for their quick work in de­tain­ing two sus­pects but said it was sad that of­fi­cers do not work with the same dili­gence when oth­er cit­i­zens are robbed and as­sault­ed.

“What made his life more valu­able?” he asked. (See Page 7)