Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Most days, Pe­o­la Bap­tiste can get through her dai­ly rou­tine fair­ly eas­i­ly.

She can com­plete chores, play with her grand­chil­dren, and even solve puz­zles to keep her mind ac­tive.

Of­ten, like a re­cur­ring night­mare, her thoughts drift back to a scene where two of her clos­est friends were gunned down while sev­er­al bul­lets struck her, leav­ing her hos­pi­talised for close to a month.

But, for Bap­tiste, this sce­nario is no bad dream.

Bap­tiste is the sole sur­vivor of the Pen­ny­wise Plaza heist in La Ro­main where her friends and col­leagues Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art were mur­dered by ban­dits last year.

The trio were em­ployed with Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd and were per­form­ing a cash-in-tran­sit op­er­a­tion at the plaza on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2022, when they were am­bushed.

The ban­dits led po­lice on a chase through La Ro­main that has left res­i­dents shocked to this day, as four of the rob­bers were killed in a gun­fight with the cops.

One of the men, a sol­dier Ish­mael Salaam, was ar­rest­ed and charged with two counts of mur­der, one count of rob­bery with vi­o­lence, and one count of wound­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm. Salaam, who is be­ing held at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca, will reap­pear in court on Oc­to­ber 2.

To­day, two days short of a year af­ter these events un­fold­ed, Bap­tiste, like the fam­i­lies of Pe­ters and Stu­art, is still heal­ing, but she has the scars to show.

Think­ing back on that fate­ful morn­ing, Bap­tiste said she did not want to go to La Ro­main to work as it would have been too far away from her home, but Pe­ters even­tu­al­ly coaxed her to ac­cept the as­sign­ment.

A cash-in-tran­sit trans­ac­tion usu­al­ly in­volves ac­cept­ing cash from a busi­ness and de­posit­ing it at a bank or oth­er fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion. These trans­ac­tions once or­gan­ised usu­al­ly take no more than five min­utes, but with­in that nar­row win­dow, any­thing can hap­pen.

For Bap­tiste, Pe­ters, and Stu­art it was just an­oth­er day on the job as they were ea­ger to com­plete the ac­tiv­i­ty and re­turn home.

“I re­mem­ber sit­ting in the ve­hi­cle. Pe­ters was talk­ing on the phone and Jer­ry was the dri­ver and I was sit­ting in the back as usu­al and we were laugh­ing and hav­ing fun not know­ing that was the last mo­ment I was hav­ing with them,” Bap­tiste said.

With­in min­utes, the jovial at­mos­phere in the van changed. As the trio drove out of the plaza and on­to the road, they en­coun­tered a scene no se­cu­ri­ty guard would hope for.

Four ban­dits were bran­dish­ing as­sault ri­fles and a car blocked the path of their ve­hi­cle.

Bap­tiste was so shocked that she did not have time to process what was hap­pen­ing far more to pull out her com­pa­ny-is­sued 9 mm pis­tol to de­fend her­self.

With­in min­utes af­ter the at­tack on the guards, footage of the shoot­ing was cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia. It was not long be­fore the video was sent to Bap­tiste’s daugh­ter by a fam­i­ly friend who al­so hap­pened to be a po­lice of­fi­cer.

“My daugh­ter saw the footage of the shoot­ing and lat­er she would tell me, ‘Girl, alyuh was get­ting shoot long time.’ They were shoot­ing through the glass, I didn’t know noth­ing. I didn’t even know my two col­leagues in front were done get­ting bul­lets.”

Most of what hap­pened next was a blur for Bap­tiste, but one fright­en­ing mem­o­ry re­mains clear.

“The guy opened the door and shot me, I think with a hand­gun. All I know was I saw the door of the van open, and I was think­ing, ‘Who is you.’ With that, all I know is I was star­ing down the bar­rel of a gun. I re­mem­ber get­ting the first shot on my side and I didn’t know any­thing af­ter that.”

Bap­tiste slipped in and out of con­scious­ness, cling­ing to life while be­ing rushed to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where doc­tors be­gan work­ing to save her life.

Her con­di­tion was se­vere.

Bap­tiste re­called, “My daugh­ter told me, ‘Mam­my, when I got that video all I see was you hang­ing out the van and I know that is my moth­er and now you dead.’”

But Bap­tiste did not die.

In fact, de­spite be­ing se­vere­ly wound­ed, she was able to hear bits and pieces of what was be­ing said by the doc­tors work­ing to save her life.

“All I heard was ‘Cut off she clothes.’ They had to cut off my clothes and they saw I had mul­ti­ple gun­shots. I had bul­lets all in my back, I didn’t get any to my spine, thank God, but I had bul­lets there (on her back) and both sides of my face.”

Bap­tiste, who was al­so shot in her chest, was tak­en from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope the fol­low­ing day.

While Bap­tiste fought for her life, her daugh­ter and oth­er rel­a­tives were dev­as­tat­ed and clung to the hope that she would re­cov­er.

In the fol­low­ing weeks, Bap­tiste would slow­ly but grad­u­al­ly re­gain con­scious­ness as she was trans­ferred from the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) to the High De­pen­den­cy Unit (HDU) and even­tu­al­ly to the sur­gi­cal ward.

In ad­di­tion to en­dur­ing ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain, she lat­er learned that her col­leagues were not as for­tu­nate as her to sur­vive.

“I didn’t know about their deaths un­til the day of their fu­ner­al and when I got to find out I had a hard time ac­cept­ing that they re­al­ly died.

“Up to now, I does ask my­self, ‘Are they re­al­ly dead?’ All now that can’t go away that eas­i­ly.”

Af­ter be­ing dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, Bap­tiste con­tin­ued to face chal­lenges re­turn­ing to her nor­mal life.

In ad­di­tion to hav­ing trou­ble sleep­ing, Bap­tiste now has sev­er­al bul­lets lodged in dif­fer­ent parts of her body, in­clud­ing her face and chest. Some of the scars are still vis­i­ble on Bap­tiste’s arms. She said sur­geons al­so had to cut and re-route pieces of her in­testines, forc­ing her to use a colosto­my bag.

With these dif­fer­ent health is­sues, Bap­tiste said, the sim­ple sen­sa­tion of tast­ing her food is some­thing she can no longer en­joy.

“I have lost the sense of taste be­cause what they were say­ing is like the nerve that the bul­let hit, it dam­aged the nerve in­side there. I had lost the sense of smell too, but I can smell a lit­tle now. But the sense of taste ... I does eat, but every­thing just tastes like cop­per and that’s not nice.”

As the phys­i­cal wounds con­tin­ue to heal, Bap­tiste’s men­tal scars are still fresh, mak­ing it un­bear­able for her to watch cer­tain movies or tele­vi­sion shows.

Her home, she said, which is lo­cat­ed near a ceme­tery, has al­so been a point of anx­i­ety for her for some time dur­ing her re­cov­ery.

“This (re­cov­ery) will take a while. Every day the emo­tions come with me. I am liv­ing near a ceme­tery and I couldn’t even look out my win­dow for a while be­cause the graves are right there.

“I can’t watch movies with shoot­ing up to to­day or some­times with shows that show peo­ple in morgues. I watch African movies to get my mind off of it or watch a com­e­dy or some­thing and that’s how I get past it.”

Even with this fear, Bap­tiste, a moth­er and grand­moth­er, con­tin­ues to look out for her chil­dren.

Giv­en her ex­pe­ri­ences as a se­cu­ri­ty guard, she said she would not rec­om­mend any of her chil­dren ap­ply for a ca­reer in pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty.

Bap­tiste said she strong­ly op­posed her 19-year-old son’s wish to ap­ply for a job as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

“You know when they fin­ish school, they might want to get a small job. He was think­ing about do­ing se­cu­ri­ty and I said, ‘Hell no!’

“This was be­fore the in­ci­dent hap­pened, but even then I didn’t want him to do that. I told him you’ll go back to school, and now he goes to a trade school.”

Amid the scars and the trau­ma, life con­tin­ues for Bap­tiste who seeks com­fort in her faith and fam­i­ly.

“I feel it best to be alive, eh. Praise God I’m al­ways a be­liev­er. I’m a Chris­t­ian, it’s just that I wasn’t too reg­u­lar in go­ing to church and things, but I’m bap­tised. I al­ways pray in the morn­ing be­fore I leave for work, ask­ing God for pro­tec­tion.”

Even as Bap­tiste con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence her fair share of chal­lenges, she re­mains grate­ful for a sec­ond chance at life and con­tin­ues striv­ing to make it worth­while.

‘Her sur­vival a sign of a high­er call­ing’

Pe­o­la Bap­tiste’s sur­vival may be a sign of a high­er call­ing and to em­brace her sec­ond chance at life. This is the be­lief of Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Richard Smith of the South­ern Di­vi­sion. Smith was one of the dozens of po­lice of­fi­cers dis­patched to the scene in the af­ter­math of the at­tack.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at his of­fice at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion last month, Smith said he saw first-hand the dev­as­ta­tion left be­hind by the rob­bers.

“God saved her, you know. He has a high­er pur­pose for her that she may not even un­der­stand now, but I see her as some­one who is here to bring a mes­sage to peo­ple out­side of the gen­er­al pub­lic.

“The fact is her sur­vival is tes­ti­mo­ny to peo­ple to say, ‘Watch me, we can’t take this (crime).’

“She saw some­thing, she lived through that and God brought her out and showed peo­ple how dev­as­tat­ing it could be.”

Smith said he con­sid­ers Bap­tiste and her fall­en col­leagues as he­roes for per­form­ing their du­ties in the face of such dan­ger.

The of­fi­cers’ sac­ri­fices should be com­mend­ed–Es­tate Con­sta­bles As­so­ci­a­tion

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the Es­tate Con­sta­bles As­so­ci­a­tion Deryck Richard­son said such sac­ri­fices should be recog­nised and com­mend­ed by their com­pa­ny.

He said while Bap­tiste was for­tu­nate to be alive, more should be done to as­sist her and the fam­i­lies of Pe­ters and Stu­art.

“We need some sup­port for the sur­vivor. We need some sup­port for Ms LaVende (Pe­ters’ wid­ow) and her chil­dren. We need sup­port for Jer­ry’s chil­dren and grand­child.

“Look at Pe­o­la, she has to wait on a list. For too long she has this stoma bag on her side.

Some­thing should hap­pen and we would like it if some­body can in­ter­vene on her be­half.”

He­roes Fund start­ed in ho­n­our of fall­en men

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via email last month, Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd said the com­pa­ny was un­able to re­spond to ques­tions over what as­sis­tance and ben­e­fits are be­ing pro­vid­ed, cit­ing an on­go­ing court mat­ter.

“What we can say is that Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty takes the well-be­ing and safe­ty of its of­fi­cers very se­ri­ous­ly and as a re­spon­si­ble cor­po­rate en­ti­ty, we have a num­ber of pro­grammes with­in the com­pa­ny to as­sist of­fi­cers with their day-to-day lives and the chal­lenges that they en­counter.

“One such ini­tia­tive is the Al­lied He­roes Fund pro­gramme which was start­ed in ho­n­our of WEC Bap­tiste and de­ceased EC Pe­ters and EC Stu­art. They all shared a pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers and in that spir­it, we sought to cre­ate a fund that demon­strates how much they have im­pact­ed us all.

“Through this ini­tia­tive, most re­cent­ly, of­fi­cers with young chil­dren writ­ing the SEA ex­am­i­na­tions were giv­en grants to as­sist with their prepa­ra­tions for the up­com­ing aca­d­e­m­ic term.”