Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The ta­bles were turned on three ban­dits who end­ed up run­ning for their lives dur­ing a home in­va­sion in Palmyra on Wednes­day. 

It is be­lieved that one as­sailant suf­fered chop wounds while one of the vic­tims, a pen­sion­er, was grazed by a bul­let.

Po­lice said short­ly af­ter 5 am, a 76-year-old man was in his yard at Mt Stew­art Vil­lage, Palmyra, when three masked as­sailants ac­cost­ed him. They forced him in­to the house at gun­point.

The man’s 28-year-old nephew heard him bawl­ing, grabbed a cut­lass and be­gan at­tack­ing the ban­dits. They strug­gled and even­tu­al­ly, the ban­dits ran out of the house. 

One of the ban­dits turned back and opened fire on the pen­sion­er and his nephew as he made his es­cape, with a bul­let graz­ing the el­der­ly man on his shoul­der. The front door was al­so dam­aged.

The ban­dits es­caped in a sil­ver Aqua which had a false reg­is­tra­tion plate. Both vic­tims were treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 

The in­ci­dent was cap­tured on CCTV.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed their home yes­ter­day, the el­der­ly man spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty for fear of his safe­ty. 

He said he would take his dog for walks around four or five o’clock in the morn­ing. He said the ban­dits de­mand­ed mon­ey but he told them he didn’t have any.

“I start to bawl and my nephew hear down­stairs, and he come up with the cut­lass, be­cause he know is ban­dit, and he start to chop them.” 

One of them, the pen­sion­er said, was chopped three times.

He said he was grazed on his shoul­der as one of the ban­dits fired at them as they ran off. 

He said his nephew was in­jured by frag­ments from the front glass door, which was shat­tered by bul­lets.

The el­der­ly man, who has lived in Palmyra all his life, said he nev­er ex­pect­ed to be at­tacked by ban­dits in his home.

“Crime is very out of hand in this coun­try and no­body do­ing noth­ing about it, noth­ing,” said the el­der­ly man, who was not con­fi­dent that the po­lice would ap­pre­hend the ban­dits. 

Es­ti­mat­ing the or­deal last­ed less than three min­utes, he said he and his nephew sur­vived be­cause of God.

“God was with we.”  

Po­lice said the reg­is­tra­tion plate on the ve­hi­cle used by the ban­dits was false. Mean­while, po­lice checked the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty and San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for pa­tients seek­ing treat­ment for chop wounds that evening but found no records.

Po­lice re­cov­ered four spent 9mm shells at the scene. 

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.