Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) cricket commentator, Guyanese Sean Devers, was robbed at gun point Sunday evening in Chaguans, Trinidad.
Devers, who is covering the Sri Lanka cricket tour of the West Indies for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service and the Kaieteur News in Guyana, said two men who looked like teenagers held him at gun point and took away several items of equipment he used for his work at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.
The journalist was staying in Chaguans and informed that he had visited Trinidad several times before and usually travels on his own.
Devers, a former Guyana under-19 cricketer, played club cricket in Trinidad in the mid 1990s and is scheduled to depart the Island after the two One Day Internationals between West Indies and Sri Lanka.
“I was just about to make a call when two young looking guys came up from behind me. One put a gun to my head while the other one had a knife. They took the phone, my wallet which had US and Trinidad and Tobago money and a bag which had equipment I use for my work,” Devers explained.
Heavily armed officers from the CID department of the Chaguans Police Station assisted Devers but says it would be difficult for him to remember the culprits if he saw them again.
According to the Police, incidents such as this one is not a regular practice in the area but added that bandits pounce on unsuspecting persons who are strangers especially if they look as if they do not live in Trinidad.
“Most times when people who are here for short visits are robbed they don’t really follow up the matter so the bandits usually takes advantage of this,” a Police Officer said.
“It is worrying to see how easy young people have access to guns in the Caribbean these days and crime is on the rise throughout the region especially in place like Jamaica, Trinidad and my homeland Guyana,” the radio broadcaster opined.
On Saturday night a 39-year-old mother was shot dead in a bar in Trinidad in front of her 18-year-old daughter, after she had earlier been engaged in a heated argument with a group of men who were heckling the girl as more and more guns crimes are being carried out by youths in the country.
Devers disclosed that he had travelled ‘all over’ Trinidad on his own in the past and had never had such an experience. A mini-disc recorder and head phones, which belong to former West Indies fast bowler Colin Croft, who also work for the BBC, and a camera which belongs to the Kaieteur News, were among the items stolen and Devers said a United States dollar reward would be give to anyone who return those items before April 14.
Anyone with information leading to the return of the stolen items can contact the Chaguans Police Station or the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board at the Queen’s Park Oval.
