SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are be­ing ad­vised to build a safe room in­side their homes so they can hide in the event of a home in­va­sion.

A ‘safe room’—al­so known as a ‘pan­ic room’—is a for­ti­fied room that is in­stalled in a pri­vate res­i­dence or busi­ness to pro­vide a safe shel­ter or hid­ing place for the in­hab­i­tants, in the event of a break-in, home in­va­sion, tor­na­do, ter­ror at­tack, or oth­er threat.

The ad­vice to in­stall safe rooms came from re­tired Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Ken­ny McIn­tyre, dur­ing a town meet­ing at Cal­cut­ta Road #2, on Sun­day (May 7). The meet­ing was called by Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, fol­low­ing a spate of rob­beries and the fire­bomb­ing of a su­per­mar­ket in the com­mu­ni­ty last Fri­day, May 5.

Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh addresses the town meeting at Calcutta Road #2, on Sunday 7 May 2023. [Image by SHASTRI BOODAN]

McIn­tyre ad­vised cit­i­zens to arm them­selves.

“With­in your house­hold, se­cure a lit­tle room in­to which you can re­treat as a place of safe­ty in the event of home in­va­sions. I am talk­ing about a small prison, right round, block round, vent on top, a steel door with­out bars—just flush to lock in­side,” he ex­plained.

“In­side you must have three or four bot­tles of wa­ter; two or three packs of Crix [salt­ed bis­cuits]; a flash­light; and a cell phone—a small cell phone, that is—if you have to stay there for a pe­ri­od of time. That will buy some time and give you a cer­tain lev­el of safe­ty,” the for­mer cop said.

McIn­tyre al­so ad­vised res­i­dents to have emer­gency num­bers on speed di­al, such as the num­bers for the po­lice, as well as to con­sid­er in­vest­ing in guard dogs and cre­at­ing neigh­bour­hood watch groups.