An attempt to use a toy gun to rob a woman and her friend turned fatal for a 20-year-old man who was shot four times on Friday night.
The assailant, identified as Jeremiah Joseph, lived in Tarouba which is close to the South Park Mall, where he was killed.
The incident occurred around 11 pm at one of the mall’s parking areas near Starlite Pharmacy.
The 53-year-old woman, a teacher, and her friend, a 69-year-old retired businessman, went for a drive in a Honda City earlier that night and had stopped at the mall to go to Starbucks but it was closed.
The retired businessman spoke with Guardian Media on the condition that their names were not revealed.
He said as they sat in the car trying to decide where to go next, he saw the assailant walking on the compound, acting suspiciously.
He said having been robbed several times before by armed assailants, he now always tries to be vigilant.
When the assailant pointed what he believed was a gun through the driver’s window at his friend’s neck, he said, he drew his licensed pistol from the holster attached to the waist of his pants and fired three shots at him.
He exited the vehicle and shot the assailant a fourth time, but the man continued running.
The man ran about 100 feet before collapsing on the side of the road, gasping for breath.
He was taken by police to the San Fernando General Hospital, but by the time he got there he had already died.
The retired businessman recalled, “We took a drive and we were deciding what next to do and parked up there for just for a few moments. It was just an opportune moment for that bandit really to see us as easy prey and make his attempt to do the robbery. I guess his evaluation was wrong and he ended up on the losing side of the whole thing. I don’t feel sorry. In a sense I sorry that it had to come to the point where someone has to lose their life in order to try to earn money in some way and that is the sad part of it.”
He said the black plastic toy looked like a real gun.
He added, “No one will like to go through this experience but it pays really to be as prepared as you can be in the event that this occurs, but the crime situation really has gone out of control.”
As a result, he said, “The only way presently that we could deal with the situation is force versus force.”
He said people need to be certified and trained in using firearms.
“We don’t really need people to just have firearms, we need for people to have firearms and to have training because a firearm in the hand of an untrained person could very well fall into the hands of the bandits.”
He blamed poor parenting as the main reason for young people going astray.
“I think all of this is being done because it seems to them that they have to future, they have no present and therefore they have no future and if we can do something to encourage the youths to be more ambitious maybe that could help,” he said.
Encouraging young people to strive to make an honest living, he advised that wealth does not come overnight but takes diligence and hard work. Meanwhile, a relative of the deceased youth told Guardian Media that his actions have left them in shock.
The relative said Joseph was a nice person and as far as they knew he was not involved in criminal activities.
Joseph had lost his job as a security officer a while ago and his 22-year-old girlfriend is due to give birth to their first baby in two weeks.
Police recovered the plastic gun at the scene.
Mon Repos police are investigating.