HAD it not been for the grace of God, a mother would have been mourning the loss of her two innocent public-spirited sons; and the operator of an Internet café, sleeping in her bed, might have also been killed by the indiscriminate gunfire employed by armed robbers during a foiled robbery attack at Lamaha Park early Tuesday morning.

Shortly after 02:00hrs on Tuesday morning, two bandits allegedly forced their way through a window into the lower flat of a two-storey home in Lamaha Park, Georgetown, while about four others kept watch at strategic points around the building. They had swooped down on the home after hearing that a crate may have come from overseas with items for a wedding. But the two who had entered the building were discovered and intercepted by occupants of the home, who raised an alarm.

Frantic shouts of “Thief! Thief!!” rent the solitude of the neighbourhood during that early Tuesday morning, and public- spirited neighbours ran out of their homes to render assistance to the beleaguered.

The valiant young men of the neighbourhood who pursued the robbers had no idea their quarry was armed. They hurled sticks at the robbers to keep them at bay; but, incensed at the audacity of the youths, the armed men turned back and recklessly opened fire on the residents, discharging approximately five shots at their pursuers.

Two brothers narrowly escaped being struck by the bullets, even as a third bullet traversed to the other side of the road to hit the glass door of an Internet café and remain trapped in the curtain behind the glass door.

Amidst the panic occasioned by the gunfire, the occupants of the home housing the Internet Café were completely unaware that a bullet had made its way into their yard and had hit the café, until the following day when it was discovered by little boys playing in front of the business place.

A report was made at the East La Penitence Police Station, from where ranks visited the scene and removed the warhead from its trappings.

Residents are amazed at what had happened, and claim it is a miracle that the bullet, travelling with that speed and force, could have gone through the glass door, made such a hole, and be suddenly stopped in its tracks by a mere curtain fabric.

The young woman who owns the café is still giving God thanks and praise for His mercies.

Residents, meanwhile, are proverbially holding their breaths even as they experience sleepless nights as they continue to live in fear of what could happen on any night of the bandits’ strike.

Over the last six weeks or so, at least fifteen attacks have been made on homes in that community, and it is alleged that, on three occasions, the men raped women in the homes broken into because they felt that they did not find enough booty. It has been noted that the majority of these attacks are carried out between the hours of 02:00 and 03:00, when the community is soundly at rest.

Most attacks, it is felt, have been carried out randomly, with no real knowledge of the material assets in the homes broken into.

About six weeks ago, a man carrying ‘a shine gun’ walked up the back stairs of an unemployed septuagenarian amputee, (in his seventies), came face to face with his victim, and ordered him to hand over his cash. Shocked out of his wits, the septuagenarian told him that he had no money, and that he was just out there puffing a cigarette as he wondered what he’d cook the following day. The resident said he turned away for a brief moment, and when he looked again, the man with the shine gun had disappeared.

The prevailing circumstances are making it incumbent upon Lamaha Park residents to implore the police to recommence their routine patrols around the area, which hopefully will serve as a deterrent to criminal elements wishing to carry out nefarious activities in the neighbourhood.

With the Christmas holidays being here and the likelihood of people firing squibs, residents find themselves facing a dilemma to determine when the cracking sounds are those made by lighted squibs as against those made from revolvers. They are perplexed to determine how to react to the sounds.

(Shirley Thomas)