Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Gripped by fear and help­less­ness as he re­alised gun­men were rob­bing his daugh­ter at their San Fer­nan­do home on Thurs­day, a 61-year-old fa­ther now be­lieves cit­i­zens are pow­er­less against ban­dits.

Still vis­i­bly shak­en as he re­count­ed the or­deal at his Re­trench Set­tle­ment home yes­ter­day, Ram Ram­per­sad al­so took the Gov­ern­ment to task for fail­ing to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion from crim­i­nals.

“It’s a hor­ri­ble feel­ing right now. I can’t de­scribe how I am feel­ing know­ing that they could come in­to your home and vi­o­late you this way at gun­point,” he lament­ed.

Ram­per­sad be­lieves the ban­dits were wait­ing for his daugh­ter, 36, a man­ag­er with a bev­er­age com­pa­ny, to ar­rive home from work, as vil­lagers saw them at the traf­fic in­ter­sec­tion not far from the home.  

The woman got home be­fore 5 pm, got out of her $300,000 Hon­da CRV and walked up the step. 

CCTV footage shows the two as­sailants, one hold­ing an um­brel­la, en­ter the prop­er­ty. One of them ac­cost­ed her as she walked in­to her gallery. She is heard shout­ing, “Take every­thing.”

Ram­per­sad said he was in­side when he heard the com­mo­tion.

“I was in­side and as soon as I opened the door the gun was in my bel­ly so I had to close it back and she is say­ing, ‘Dad, don’t open the door, don’t open the door.’ It hap­pened so fast. You have no time to re­act.”

They stole his daugh­ter’s hand­bag, two cell­phones, a lap­top and the ve­hi­cle she bought in Feb­ru­ary.

His daugh­ter was not at home yes­ter­day, as she had gone to var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions to reac­quire her doc­u­ments that were stolen. 

Ram­per­sad, who al­so re­sides in Cana­da, said he used to boast that the neigh­bour­hood where he lived all his life was the safest in the coun­try.

“I think what hap­pened to me and the way how fast it hap­pened I don’t think a home­own­er will be able to avoid this sit­u­a­tion. That’s how ter­ri­ble this sit­u­a­tion is be­cause it hap­pened so fast...this is some­thing that a home­own­er can­not avoid.”

In that sit­u­a­tion, he said a gun would not have pre­vent­ed the rob­bery.  

“If I had a gun it would still have hap­pened be­cause the way how fast it hap­pened you have no time to re­act. It’s like you there and you not.”

The fa­ther felt that the Gov­ern­ment and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty were not do­ing enough against crime.

“Def­i­nite­ly with­out a doubt in my mind, the Gov­ern­ment is fail­ing the whole of Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens. they are fail­ing that’s the rea­son why the ban­dits could do what­ev­er they want and they know that they have no re­course. They know that the Gov­ern­ment is some­how or the oth­er pro­tect­ing the ban­dit in­stead of pro­tect­ing their cit­i­zens,” he lament­ed.

Re­quest­ing po­lice pa­trols in the neigh­bour­hood, he said his daugh­ter was trau­ma­tised and dev­as­tat­ed.

The ban­dits were still at large yes­ter­day.