(Trinidad Express) – The curfew in the crime hot spot of Longdenville, Chaguanas, failed to stop an attack on a family whose house was broken into by four men who raped a mother and daughter.
The suspects escaped in the family’s Toyota Corolla car, and were on the run, despite the heightened law enforcement presence during the State of Emergency crime crackdown.
An All-Points Bulletin (APB) for the stolen vehicle had yielded no result up to late Thursday.
The family patriarch who did not want to be named told the Express: “Police responded quickly and the officers who came here were very professional. They took my wife and daughter to Mt Hope (Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex). What I was really displeased with was the lack of coordination overall in the exercise. I felt that if air operations as in the helicopter had joined in the search they would definitely have found those guys at least by the time they were abandoning the vehicle.”
The attack comes on the heels of a warning from the Police Service public relations officer, ASP Joanne Archie, that women should be vigilant as there were two reports of rape in the last two weeks.
A senior policeman told Express that the 49-year-old woman was distraught following the attack, and her teenage daughter was being treated for injuries at the Mount Hope Medical Sciences Complex.
The mother was also treated at hospital and discharged.
The woman told police she secured her house on Tuesday night and she and her daughter, 17, went to sleep in separate bedrooms. Her two sons who were in the upstairs part of the house were also beaten, police said. Her husband was not at home.
Around 2.30 am on Wednesday, the woman awoke to find four masked men in her bedroom. Police investigations revealed the men unlocked a window on the side of house and entered.
The men ordered the woman to hand over her cash and jewellery.
They then raped the woman and her daughter in separate bedrooms, police said.
With the loot, the men left in the car valued at $50,000.
Around the time of the attack police exercises were being carried out in the Southern, Central and Northern Divisions by the Chaguanas CID and by the Cyber Crime Unit between 9.30 pm Tuesday and 3 am on Wednesday.
