SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The es­ca­la­tion of home in­va­sions, which have led to a string of beat­ings, ter­ror, threats, and a bru­tal sex­u­al as­sault in the last two months, has forced Carlsen Field res­i­dents to dip in­to their pock­ets to pay for pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to pa­trol their farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

Thou­sands of dol­lars are now be­ing spent by the fear­ful vil­lagers who be­lieve this is the on­ly way to save them from the wrath of armed men who op­er­ate in groups num­ber­ing four to six. The thieves, who wear ski masks, have been forc­ing their way in­to homes, de­mand­ing valu­ables and cash. An­i­mals have al­so been stolen.

The ter­ri­fy­ing in­crease in home in­va­sions has made many res­i­dents un­easy.

Be­tween March and May, Sheep and Goat Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Shi­raz Khan said there were five home in­va­sions on Con­nec­tor Road alone, the ma­jor­i­ty of which were not re­port­ed to the po­lice out of fear.

Khan’s wife was one of the vic­tims. How­ev­er, Khan said the most chill­ing of the rob­beries was the re­cent sex­u­al as­sault and ter­ror the crim­i­nals un­leashed on a woman in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He said the gun­men en­tered the woman’s home and tor­tured her by “rub­bing pep­per in her eyes.” Help­less and in ex­treme pain, she was sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed.

“The men al­so locked her in a dog ken­nel and uri­nat­ed on her,” Khan said. Items were then stolen from her house.

Khan said that be­fore leav­ing, the wicked crim­i­nals placed the naked woman on the bon­net of their car and drove off at break­neck speed, caus­ing her to tum­ble on the dark road­way.

Since the in­ci­dent, Khan said, the woman has re­fused to speak to any­one.

“She didn’t even re­port it to the po­lice; she is too ashamed, scared, and em­bar­rassed about the in­ci­dent.”

On Wednes­day, the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the dis­mal Con­nec­tor Road to talk to the res­i­dents, but the ma­jor­i­ty of homes were locked.

Most of the homes are far apart, which makes the res­i­dents an ide­al tar­get for crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

‘Po­lice not pa­trolling’

Khan’s wife al­so went through a trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence on March 8, when four armed men in­vad­ed their home around 5.30 am.

 “These guys were watch­ing me be­cause I had just left home to run an er­rand.”

 Be­fore pris­ing open the back door, the men dis­abled Khan’s CCTV cam­eras. 

“They dragged my sleep­ing wife off her bed.”

Flash­ing a torch­light in her eyes, the thieves de­mand­ed mon­ey.

“My wife hand­ed over an undis­closed sum of cash, but the ban­dits were dis­sat­is­fied. They be­gan ran­sack­ing the house and even threat­ened to chop off her fin­gers.” 

 Khan said the thieves stole jew­el­ry, TVs, lap­tops, cell­phones, and kitchen ap­pli­ances.

“They made a clean sweep. The Freeport Po­lice vis­it­ed my home and took a re­port.”

Two days af­ter the rob­bery, Khan said he found three “pig foot” in his yard, which he be­lieved the crim­i­nals had used to en­ter his house.

Khan al­so stum­bled up­on a shoe.

“I told the Freeport po­lice that the pig­foot may have the ban­dits’ fin­ger­prints on it. Up to now, they ain’t take me on. I still have it in my pos­ses­sion. This is the kind of re­sponse we get from the po­lice.”

Khan said that if he had been at home dur­ing the rob­bery, he would have put up a fight.

“It would have been a case of kill or be killed. Some­body would ah end up dead. I can’t tell you the last time I saw po­lice pa­trolling in our area. They not do­ing any­thing for the res­i­dents here, and un­til some­body takes the law in­to their hands, then the po­lice will wake up.”

More than two months af­ter the brazen theft, Khan said no one had been ar­rest­ed for the crime.

“I still live in fear. I don’t go out. Peo­ple have be­come pris­on­ers in their homes, and even in your homes, you are no longer safe. I have to con­stant­ly be watch­ing over my shoul­der. It’s an un­easy feel­ing.”

 To com­pound mat­ters, Khan, a live­stock farmer, said he went to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion to in­quire about coun­selling for his trau­ma­tised wife, but a fe­male of­fi­cer treat­ed him like a crim­i­nal. “The woman talked to me worse than a dog.”

Days af­ter the dis­turb­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, Khan said gun-tot­ing thieves tar­get­ed the home of a mar­ket ven­dor, tak­ing with them sev­er­al valu­able items. “They robbed the woman twice in two weeks.”

The ban­dits al­so ripped down the elec­tri­cal lines of the ven­dor’s CCTV cam­eras.

In the first home in­va­sion, Khan said, the ven­dor’s 16-year-old son slept through the bur­glary. “If that boy had awak­ened, it might have end­ed in mur­der.”

He said the thieves al­so in­vad­ed the home of an­oth­er fam­i­ly who was ter­rorised and robbed. “They dis­con­nect­ed the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply in their house.”

 The lat­est home in­va­sion, Khan said, took place on Mon­day at Sou Sou Lands in Carlsen Field. “That’s on the out­skirts of the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Armed men en­tered the home of an am­putee, beat­ing him and his son to a pulp. 

The fam­i­ly was al­so re­lieved of their jew­el­ry and cash.

Khan be­lieves there were oth­er home in­va­sions in the area.

“We are be­ing tar­get­ed. These crim­i­nals have be­come em­bold­ened.”

Pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to pa­trol home at night

Fear­ing for his safe­ty and life, Khan said he de­cid­ed to pay a pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firm to pa­trol his home at night.

“Oth­er res­i­dents and farm­ers on my streets have al­so in­vest­ed in this se­cu­ri­ty mea­sure.” Each neigh­bour pays $400 month­ly.

“This is an ad­di­tion­al ex­pense we have to shoul­der be­cause the po­lice are not do­ing their job.”

Khan has al­so spent a tidy sum to prop­er­ly se­cure his home.

“I liv­ing here for 38 years, and this is the first time I see crim­i­nals on a ram­page. Our com­mu­ni­ty is fac­ing its dark­est hour, and we are help­less. The ban­dits are gain­ing the up­per hand. How much more peo­ple could take, boy?”

In the last three months, Khan said, prae­di­al lar­ce­ny has al­so been on the rise in the farm­ing set­tle­ment. “So they rob­bing you in­side your home and steal­ing your an­i­mal out­side.” 

To sub­stan­ti­ate his claims, Khan showed a re­cent video of six mask-wear­ing thieves armed with steel rods scour­ing a farm to steal an­i­mals. Khan al­so pro­duced pho­tographs of a cow’s foe­tus that had been dumped at the side of the road af­ter its moth­er had been stolen and slaugh­tered for its meat.

Last Au­gust, Khan said an­i­mals val­ued at $150,000 were stolen from his farm.

Po­lice: Re­sources stretched

‘If they keep it a se­cret, the po­lice will not be able to re­spond’

On Fri­day, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dant of the Cen­tral Po­lice Di­vi­sion Garvin Si­mon told the Sun­day Guardian that if these home in­va­sions in Carlsen Field were nev­er re­port­ed to the po­lice they would be un­able to ad­dress the mat­ter.

“Two things can come up with that: one, the va­lid­i­ty of that is in ques­tion be­cause the po­lice would have nev­er had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­view the per­son to say if there were any in­juries con­sis­tent with the re­port or any­thing like that,” Si­mon said. Sec­ond­ly, he said, it is im­pos­si­ble to com­ment on the mat­ter if no re­port was made. “We would be op­er­at­ing to­tal­ly in the dark.”

 Si­mon said Khan could have called or vis­it­ed him at the sta­tion.

 “And if there was an is­sue like that, he could have more than ap­proached me; even if the per­sons are not mak­ing the re­ports, at least he could bring that to my at­ten­tion to see how we could have some kind of in­ter­ven­tion.”

 In­stead, Si­mon said, Khan chose to go to the me­dia.

 Re­gard­ing claims by Khan that there was a lack of po­lice pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty, Si­mon said their “re­sources are stretched.”

 The di­vi­sion, he said, moves its re­sources ac­cord­ing to crime trends.

 He said crime was dy­nam­ic as it keeps mi­grat­ing.

 “If you don’t make a re­port, we would not know that we need to make pa­trols, and we would trans­fer our re­sources to ar­eas where we are hav­ing is­sues. So if they con­tin­ue to keep it (crimes) a se­cret, then the po­lice will not be able to re­spond to it.”

 Last month the po­lice held a town meet­ing in that area with the res­i­dents, the se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent said.

 “And if nowhere else, that is the time to come out and say some­thing.”

 Si­mon said the po­lice sta­tion was one in­sti­tu­tion where civil­ians could re­port crimes.

 Anony­mous re­ports can be made at Crime Stop­pers. They can al­so call 555.

Bur­glar­ies and rob­beries on the rise in Cen­tral

There has been a no­tice­able in­crease in bur­glar­ies and break-ins in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion so far this year com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

 Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures com­piled by the TTPS Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch, bur­glar­ies were one of five cat­e­gories of Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes (SRCs) that were ac­tive­ly on the rise in the di­vi­sion.

 The fig­ures showed that be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and May 13, there were 132 bur­glar­ies and break-ins re­port­ed, com­pared to on­ly 109 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

 There was a marked drop in the num­ber of bur­glar­ies in April, with on­ly 67 re­ports for that month. How­ev­er, kid­nap­pings re­mained a prob­lem, with sev­en re­ports en­tered.

 The oth­er cat­e­gories where there were no­tice­able in­creas­es in crimes were wound­ings/shoot­ings, rapes/sex­u­al of­fences, kid­nap­ping, and mis­cel­la­neous se­ri­ous crimes.

 The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion ex­tends from Las Lo­mas in the north to Clax­ton Bay in the south, en­com­pass­ing a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of in­fra­struc­ture and com­mu­ni­ties.

 Moore's mis­ery

Late last year, five armed men stormed the home of Hy­acinth Moore in broad day­light and tor­tured her fam­i­ly for two-and-a-half hours.

 Moore lives at Xeres Road, which is about half a mile from Khan’s sprawl­ing farm.

 Still shak­en by the dis­turb­ing in­ci­dent, Moore, a re­tired In­dus­tri­al Court clerk, said Carlsen Field has al­ways been a qui­et place.

 “We nev­er had these types of crimes be­fore. I used to walk out of my street at 5 am to go to work. It was safe back then.”

 Crim­i­nals, she said, are now mak­ing their lives mis­er­able.

 Moore, 60, said she can’t erase the home in­va­sion from her mind. “It left me in shock and pet­ri­fied.”

 It was just be­fore lunchtime when the gun­men emerged from a riv­er be­hind their home and am­bushed her sis­ter, who was feed­ing an­i­mals in their pens. “A gun was placed to my sis­ter’s head, and she was dragged in­side the house.”

 Moore said she had no idea that the men were in­side the house, which is di­vid­ed in­to five sec­tions. The men hogged-tied Moore’s 62-year-old sis­ter, broth­er, and teenage niece. To pre­vent Moore’s broth­er from mov­ing, the ban­dits threw a three-seater chair on top of him.

It was on­ly when one of Moore’s friends showed up at her house and she opened the door, the thieves forced their way in­side. The two women were or­dered to lie on the ground, and a bed­sheet was placed over their faces.

 “They ran­sacked every­thing in the house look­ing for valu­ables and mon­ey. This went on for two-and-a-half hours. It was ab­solute tor­ture and ter­ror for us.”

 The men even ate snacks from their fridge. The fam­i­ly was re­lieved of lap­tops, tablets, cell­phones, house­hold ap­pli­ances, tele­vi­sion sets, jew­el­ry and cash.

 “Our loss­es were a lot. Them fel­las even emp­tied a cro­cus bag filled with rub­bish and put some ducks in it. The ban­dits put every­thing in our car and es­caped.”

 Two days lat­er, Moore said the stolen ve­hi­cle was found in Laven­tille. This was the fam­i­ly’s sec­ond rob­bery in days. “A lot of our an­i­mals were stolen just two days be­fore,” Moore said.

 Moore re­cent­ly found out that ban­dits al­so robbed a woman who was dri­ving along their street. “They blocked the woman’s car and held her up. The sad thing about it is the woman had chil­dren in the ve­hi­cle. The area is lone­ly, so peo­ple are be­com­ing easy tar­gets.”