RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A re­tired pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer, un­der whose home the po­lice cor­nered and killed four ban­dits fol­low­ing the hor­rif­ic Pen­ny­wise Plaza heist, is urg­ing youths to rest down their guns.

Still vis­i­bly shak­en from the or­deal, An­n­marie El­bourne, re­tired coun­ty se­nior pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer, said even though things were hard in the coun­try, youths should nev­er re­sort to crime.

“I am el­der­ly now and I am re­tired and I need young peo­ple to care for me, to care for my fam­i­ly and not to hurt my fam­i­ly,” El­bourne wept as she re­called how she and five mem­bers of her fam­i­ly re­mained hud­dled up­stairs while the four ban­dits tried to get in­side.

One of the rob­bers tried to en­ter through a side door, but El­bourne said thanks to the vig­i­lance of her neigh­bours, they were able to shut all doors tight­ly pre­vent­ing the rob­bers from com­ing up­stairs.

“I am 67 years old and I nev­er thought this would hap­pen. I have worked my butt off as a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer. I have worked im­mense­ly hard and this is the re­ward for my fam­i­ly and I?”

She added: “ We need to look at the di­rec­tion that so­ci­ety is tak­ing. I im­plore young peo­ple, to rest the gun down. I am a pen­sion­er and I have to face the gro­cery and drug store, and yes it’s not easy. I ac­cept that but we don’t have to go in­to crime, We don’t. Please Trinidad and To­ba­go, please rest down the guns,” she cried.

Re­call­ing the hor­ror, El­bourne said six gun­men climbed a wall to the back of her home and en­tered the premis­es but a rel­a­tive saw the men and alert­ed them.

“He tell us to close the house, lock our­selves in­side. One ban­dit was try­ing to come through the side door and I kept my head on and I try to keep com­posed. I called my broth­er who is po­lice,” she re­vealed.

By then the six ban­dits were hur­ried­ly try­ing to en­ter.

Po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rived min­utes af­ter and cor­nered the thieves. Two of them ran through some bush­es. The of­fi­cers spot­ted the men and sur­round­ed the house. About 20 gun shots rang out and all four rob­bers were fa­tal­ly shot.

El­bourne said she knew it was “no or­di­nary fir­ing.”

Mean­while, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob vis­it­ed El­bourne and of­fered sup­port to her and oth­er res­i­dents. Ja­cob said he knew El­bourne for many years as they went to Uni­ver­si­ty to­geth­er. He said of­fi­cers from the Vic­tim Sup­port Unit will pro­vide coun­selling as need­ed to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

Since the in­ci­dent res­i­dents of Jones Street have been ter­ri­fied, lock­ing their doors and boost­ing se­cu­ri­ty around their premis­es.

On Mon­day, two se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art of Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices died af­ter be­ing am­bushed and shot while con­duct­ing a cash-in-tran­sit op­er­a­tion at Pen­ny­wise Plaza. Pe­ters died on the spot while Stu­art died on his way to the hos­pi­tal. A third guard Pe­o­la Bap­tiste was shot in the head and re­mains ward­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

Three peo­ple are now in po­lice cus­tody as­sist­ing with in­ves­ti­ga­tions.