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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Businessman shoots at bandits who stole his cash, bread

by

Sascha Wilson
291 days ago
20241005
Bullet holes on the side glass of a businessman’s vehicle, after he shot at bandits who robbed him outside a bakery in South Oropouche on Thursday.

Bullet holes on the side glass of a businessman’s vehicle, after he shot at bandits who robbed him outside a bakery in South Oropouche on Thursday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A rou­tine trip for bread end­ed up be­ing a life-threat­en­ing or­deal for a busi­ness­man who “emp­tied the clip” on two ban­dits dur­ing a rob­bery in front of a bak­ery in South Oropouche on Thurs­day. 

One of the ban­dits re­turned fire as they made a hasty re­treat, but the busi­ness­man was un­harmed.

They es­caped with $1,200, the key to the busi­ness­man’s Ford Rap­tor (worth $10,000) and hops bread.

Re­quest­ing anonymi­ty out of con­cern for his safe­ty, the busi­ness­man lament­ed that this was not his first en­counter with armed ban­dits. He said this lat­est in­ci­dent has on­ly strength­ened his re­solve to mi­grate due to the high crime rate in the coun­try.

Po­lice said short­ly af­ter 4 pm the busi­ness­man ex­it­ed Deo’s Home­style Bak­ery along South­ern Main Road in Aripero Vil­lage af­ter pur­chas­ing two quarts of hops.

It was then he saw a man walk­ing to­wards him as he head­ed to his ve­hi­cle. Then, he saw the sec­ond sus­pect with a gun run­ning to­wards him. He de­mand­ed the key to his van.

“He was grab­bing at a bunch of keys that I had on my waist and I was try­ing to de­flect him from go­ing that way be­cause I had my firearm right on my side,” the busi­ness­man ex­plained.

The busi­ness­man then took the key from his pants pock­et and hand­ed it to the ban­dits.  

The busi­ness­man said while point­ing the gun at him, one of the ban­dits de­mand­ed his mon­ey.

He said he had his cash in a mon­ey clip, but he took off the clip, hop­ing when he threw the mon­ey at him, it would scat­ter and dis­tract the ban­dit.

“The mon­ey didn’t fly too far, but while he was pick­ing up the mon­ey, he was still watch­ing me and aim­ing the gun at me. When he picked up the mon­ey he picked up my two quart of bread too and he put all of that in the van.”

Still fear­ful for his life, he said he slow­ly walked back­wards to the bak­ery and then opened fire on the ban­dits in­side his van.  

“The one who was in­side the ve­hi­cle I shot at him, through the glass and he crawled out through the next side, the left side and he ran away.”

He said the oth­er ban­dit fired sev­er­al shots at him, one of which struck the glass door of the busi­ness place.  The busi­ness­man said the ban­dit could not move the van be­cause the ve­hi­cle had rigid se­cu­ri­ty fea­tures. 

The busi­ness­man called for more pro­tec­tion for busi­ness places and own­ers.

“I think the au­thor­i­ties are aware of where these in­di­vid­u­als are com­ing from and I am not sure what is the rea­son why they can­not ap­pre­hend or get rid of them. Some years ago there were cer­tain hotspots in Trinidad now there is no longer a hot spot, the en­tire coun­try is hot. There’s nowhere you can con­sid­er safe, not even in your own home. Home in­va­sions are preva­lent through­out. It doesn’t mat­ter if you are in a big man­sion or a lit­tle wood­en house, you are a tar­get,” he said.

The busi­ness­man said he had al­ready start­ed the pa­per­work to mi­grate be­cause of crime.

“Very soon Trinidad wouldn’t have the lev­el of busi­ness­es to keep the econ­o­my turn­ing once this con­tin­ues hap­pen­ing,” he lament­ed.

Mean­while, po­lice have ob­tained CCTV footage of the in­ci­dent. Of­fi­cers of the Oropouche Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.


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