Sascha Wil­son

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are be­ing urged to be vig­i­lant and take pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures fol­low­ing an in­crease in home in­va­sions in the last few months.

The ad­vice came from Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob who con­firmed that there has been an in­crease in re­ports of rob­beries at homes in the last three months.

With­in 48 hours, at least three home in­va­sions have been re­port­ed in South Trinidad. Ear­li­er this week, a re­tired game war­den shot and killed an armed as­sailant who was try­ing to steal his son’s van at their Table­land home.

One of the rob­beries oc­curred around 3.15 am on Wednes­day at the home of a re­tired med­ical doc­tor in Palmiste. Michael Leon Poi, 87, was asleep when he was awok­en by a loud crash­ing sound. He was con­front­ed by three men armed with firearms who robbed him of an undis­closed sum of cash. They es­caped in a white wag­on.

On Tues­day, Moru­ga farmer Raj Bu­choon, 41, was watch­ing tele­vi­sion at his Pe­nal Rock Road home around 5.30 am when stormed in­to the house. Armed with two cut­lass­es and a shot­gun, the men an­nounced a hold-up. He was then beat­en with the cut­lass and tied up. They took his keys and drove off with his Y12 AD Wag­on in which he al­so had $300. The as­sailants, how­ev­er, did not get far with his wag­on. They ran off the road a short dis­tance away. They then es­caped in a sil­ver Aqua.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent on Tues­day, Ram­sawak Ma­haraj, 60, and Zo­bi­da Ma­haraj, 55, a sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive, were at their Mara­bel­la home around 9.20 pm when they were ac­cost­ed by two mask-wear­ing in­trud­ers. One of the men was armed with a knife. They were robbed of $200, a Sam­sung J2 Mi­ni val­ued $600, and a $1,000 Sam­sung J2. The men then ran off. How­ev­er, the po­lice sub­se­quent­ly ar­rest­ed a 19-year-old sus­pect from Morne Co­co Road, Mar­aval and the Sam­sung J2 was re­cov­ered.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ja­cob said that in the past two to three months they have seen a num­ber of home in­va­sions re­ports. He said it ap­pears that these crimes were be­ing com­mit­ted by four of five dif­fer­ent groups of crim­i­nals.

How­ev­er, he as­sured the pub­lic that the po­lice have ar­rest­ed sev­er­al per­pe­tra­tors for these crimes.

“We don’t want to pan­ic peo­ple. We are on top things,” said Ja­cob who al­lud­ed to the ar­rest of as­sailants who ear­li­er this year robbed Chi­nese na­tion­als at their home and busi­ness place in San Juan. He added that the po­lice have al­so ar­rest­ed and charged sev­er­al peo­ple in con­nec­tion with home in­va­sions in Cen­tral and South Trinidad and al­so in West ear­li­er this year. The DCP said the var­i­ous Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ments with­in the po­lice di­vi­sions were work­ing hand in hand and are al­so be­ing as­sist­ed by oth­er spe­cialised units in the ser­vice. With few­er peo­ple in pub­lic due to the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions, Ja­cob be­lieves crim­i­nals have shift­ed their modus operan­di to home in­va­sions.

He said house­break­ing of­fend­ers al­so run the risk of en­coun­ter­ing their vic­tims at home. Ja­cob ad­vised peo­ple to take ad­di­tion­al sit­u­a­tion­al crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures to make them­selves hard tar­gets for crim­i­nals. “We are ask­ing peo­ple to be a bit more vig­i­lant in re­la­tion to their where­abouts and rou­tines.” He al­so ad­vised peo­ple to se­cure their homes prop­er­ly and re­port any strange peo­ple or ve­hi­cles in their area.