Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Chi­nese busi­ness­es and res­i­dents are un­der at­tack by ban­dits in San­ta Rosa Heights, Ari­ma.

The lat­est Chi­nese vic­tim is a 74-year-old man who was beat­en on Ju­ly 28 and left for dead at his Pin­to Road busi­ness place, which is lo­cat­ed two build­ings from the Pin­to Road Po­lice Post.

An­oth­er Chi­nese busi­ness­man, who is sit­u­at­ed a mere 500 feet away at Av­o­ca­do Road, was al­so re­lieved of the day's sales as he closed up his busi­ness two weeks ago

Yes­ter­day, res­i­dents called on the po­lice to do their job, stat­ing they are sel­dom seen pa­trolling the crime-rid­den com­mu­ni­ty.

The res­i­dents said due to the con­stant at­tacks they are now liv­ing in fear, not­ing it was on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore an in­no­cent per­son is gunned down by the crim­i­nals.

Some res­i­dents, who re­fused to give their names, spoke emo­tion­al­ly about the beat­ing of the el­der­ly busi­ness­man who many de­scribed as the friend­liest guy in the neigh­bour­hood.

One vil­lager said the ban­dits en­tered the Chi­nese man's pre­serve busi­ness pre­tend­ing to be cus­tomers around 3.30 pm, when the area was rel­a­tive­ly qui­et. The ban­dits pulled out their guns, jumped over the counter and start­ed to beat the busi­ness­man for his day's earn­ing.

The man was then dragged in­side his ad­join­ing home, where he was hogtied and se­vere­ly beat­en by the thieves in the pres­ence of an el­der­ly fe­male rel­a­tive as they be­gan search­ing and ran­sack­ing the house for oth­er valu­ables.

"The ban­dits cuffed the old man re­peat­ed­ly un­der his chin, face and in his mid­sec­tion un­til he got a mas­sive heart at­tack and col­lapsed. The ban­dits just did not care. All they want­ed was mon­ey and jew­el­ry," one res­i­dent ex­plained.

Res­i­dents said it was on­ly af­ter the man be­came un­con­scious that the ban­dits pan­icked and fled in a wait­ing car.

Res­i­dents were alert­ed to the rob­bery when a cus­tomer went in­to the store and heard the busi­ness­man's fe­male rel­a­tive cry­ing for help as she tried to re­vive the bleed­ing man.

"That's when we rushed over to as­sist. The busi­ness­man's en­tire mid sec­tion was bruised and black and blue, while his face was cov­ered in blood," the res­i­dents re­called.

The busi­ness­man, res­i­dents said, was hos­pi­talised for four days af­ter the at­tack.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the busi­ness yes­ter­day, an el­der­ly Chi­nese woman who was be­hind the counter re­fused to give her name or talk.

"No. Not speak," she said, as tears welled in her eyes.

But the res­i­dents said the woman had been se­vere­ly shak­en up and trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent, hence her re­ac­tion.

A res­i­dent said af­ter the rob­bery, the po­lice ad­mit­ted they felt em­bar­rassed that a crime had been com­mit­ted 50 feet from the sta­tion and they were un­aware.

Two weeks ago, vil­lagers said the oth­er busi­ness­man, who op­er­ates a ware­house at Av­o­ca­do Road, was al­so tar­get­ed.

"Ap­par­ent­ly they were mon­i­tor­ing this busi­ness­man for quite some time. They wait­ed for the busi­ness­man to come out with his day's sale in the evening and robbed him at gun­point."

Since the rob­bery, the busi­ness, which stored a va­ri­ety of items, has not re-opened.

Op­po­site to the ware­house, a work­er at Kang's Wok Chi­nese Restau­rant pre­ferred not to speak when asked if Chi­nese were be­ing tar­get­ed by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

"Not talk," he po­lite­ly said.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Sura­jdeen Per­sad last night ad­mit­ted that Chi­nese na­tion­als have been un­der at­tack by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments at San­ta Rosa, but said it was not unique to the area.

"It's not on­ly at Pin­to Road...they have been tar­get­ing Chi­nese na­tion­als through­out Trinidad. This has been go­ing on for quite a while."

Fol­low­ing the rob­beries at Pin­to Road, Per­sad said they had in­creased mo­bile pa­trols in the area.

"The CID de­part­ment and crime pa­trols have been pay­ing par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to that. We are hop­ing to make a break­through very soon with these rob­beries," Per­sad said, re­fus­ing to dwell fur­ther on how far po­lice had reach with their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Told that the T&T Guardian had spent sev­er­al hours on Pin­to Road and sur­round­ing ar­eas yes­ter­day and did not see one po­lice ve­hi­cle on pa­trol, Per­sad said, "We have pa­trols and I will def­i­nite­ly look in­to it. I know we have de­ployed pa­trols in that area specif­i­cal­ly to look at the Pin­to Road sit­u­a­tion."

Ef­forts to reach the Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T for a com­ment yes­ter­day evening was un­suc­cess­ful.

Self-im­posed cur­fews

In the last two months, res­i­dents said they had seen an up­surge of rob­beries in their com­mu­ni­ty, which have them liv­ing on the edge and un­easy.

San­ta Rosa has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,800 hous­es.

Streets such as King Or­ange, Tan­ger­ine, Cheery Tree and Plum Rose have been hit sev­er­al times re­cent­ly.

One res­i­dent said one group of bi­cy­cle ban­dits in San­ta Rosa work in col­lu­sion with an­oth­er gang from Pin­to Road.

The ban­dits, who ride around on bi­cy­cles, would scope and mon­i­tor the move­ments of res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers dur­ing the day, they ex­plained.

"Then they com­mu­ni­cate with an­oth­er gang from Pin­to Road and give them a feed­back. Once they know the coast is clear the Pin­to Road gang would strike. These Pin­to Road gun­men would come in stolen ve­hi­cles and put down their work. Many of their get­away cars were stolen ve­hi­cles," a res­i­dent said.

Tan­ger­ine Dri­ve res­i­dent, Anne Springer, said the com­mu­ni­ty was un­der siege.

"Every­one is tak­ing pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures. Some peo­ple are putting up tow­er­ing walls in the front and back of their homes, while oth­ers are in­vest­ing in vi­cious dogs to guard their prop­er­ties.

"Peo­ple are not go­ing out as be­fore. They are be­com­ing pris­on­ers in their own homes," she added.

Springer's neigh­bour, news­pa­per colum­nist Kei­th Subero, said oth­er res­i­dents were in­stalling bur­glar proof­ing and se­cu­ri­ty cam­era sys­tems to de­ter the crim­i­nals.

Subero ad­mit­ted the of­fi­cers at­tached to the post sel­dom do foot or ve­hi­cle pa­trols.

An­oth­er res­i­dent said many hous­es were cleaned out in the last few months.

"They would break in­to your home and steal your com­put­ers, tele­vi­sion, small ap­pli­ances and DVD play­ers," one res­i­dent dis­closed.

"Qui­et a few hous­es have faced this," an­oth­er res­i­dent said.

"To me, the sta­tion is like a re­sort or ho­tel for those po­lice of­fi­cers. We need some vis­i­bil­i­ty. We need the po­lice to pro­tect and serve the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause this is get­ting out of con­trol. Are they go­ing to wait un­til a life is tak­en be­fore they take ac­tion. We need help... and we need it fast," Subero added.

Man­ag­er of Joy Mi­ni Mart, Dave James, al­so dis­closed he had ob­served a new trend de­vel­op­ing, in that chil­dren as young as nine and ten years old were steal­ing snacks from his shop.

"Their par­ents don't even know what they are do­ing. The area is be­com­ing a hot spot for crime. I am go­ing to in­vest in some ad­di­tion­al cam­eras out­side," said James, who has sev­en cam­eras in­side his busi­ness.