By John Richards
Following robberies over the last three weeks, including a knife-point attack on an elderly woman yesterday, residents of Earl’s Court, La Bonne Intention, East Coast Demerara say they are living in fear and called for more security.
Although residents were happy with the prompt response of the police yesterday, they said there is a need for officers to be stationed in the community and urged a mobile parole in the area at least in the night and a few times during the day.
In the first of two daylight attacks in the area yesterday, the elderly resident was held at knife-point as she was exiting her front door to proceed into her yard.
The woman, who requested anonymity, told Stabroek News that she was going outside when she was confronted by a young man, who was clad only in underwear and a head-tie, and who held a knife to her throat and threw her onto the floor.
At this point, the traumatised woman recalled, she began raising an alarm. She said that when her attacker realised that she was not taking him into the house and that persons were responding to her calls, he fled over a fence into the bush.
After returning from a hospital visit, the woman’s hand was bandaged while she displayed cuts and her neck was bruised.
Later, around midday, not more than ten houses away, a bandit entered another resident’s home and ransacked it. The homeowner, who was in Georgetown at the time looking after business, left his maid at the house. The maid said she was washing clothes when she received a call from her boss, who said that he had just gotten word of a robbery earlier in the day and warned her to be careful. As a result, she secured the house but left the back door open, since she was draining the washing machine. After hanging clothes on the line outside, the woman said she re-entered the house and saw the bandit making his way through the door.
She declined to say if anything was stolen.
When this newspaper visited the area yesterday, residents were very concerned about their safety and noted that there was a string of break-ins over the past three weeks.
They explained that near the end of March, there was a break-in at the Seventh-day Adventist church at the head of the entrance to the community. In less than a week’s time, an attempt was made to break into a resident’s home.
The resident, who wished not to be identified, said that he and his wife retired to bed after turning on the alarm system and soon after it was tripped. It was also reported that within the last two weeks, two houses were broken-into. In one instance, the robber(s) made his way in by climbing through a window on the top floor of the house.
According to residents, they were very much concerned, since most of them travel to work and it would not be safe for them to leave their home unattended if attacks continue. They are also concerned about the area at the back of their properties, which is filled with bushes. The land, they said, belongs to GuySuCo’s LBI estate and there had been calls for the bush to be cleared to ensure it could not be used as a hiding/dwelling place by criminals.
A resident showed this newspaper the rear of his property, which he weeds regularly. However, a fallen electrical pole with wires overrun by grass prevents him from clearing away all the vegetation.
