-two men shot by fleeing bandits
A 27-year-old shop owner remained traumatised yesterday as she recalled the harrowing experience of being battered and bruised by gun-toting bandits on Saturday night and being forced to run naked into her neighbourhood to be rescued.
“It was a traumatising experience last night [Saturday night], right now my whole skin is in pain,” Vashtie Heber said yesterday as she recounted the brutal attack at her Kuru Kururu, Sodeskye/Linden Highway at around 9.30 pm on Saturday.
But even as she spoke of her experience, which included a burst head that required three stitches, she felt she had more luck on her side than her neighbour, Pastor Gladstone Bagot and another man, Phillip Toney, both of whom were shot by the fleeing bandits and are now hospitalised.
According to a release from the police Heber was on the back stairway of her home when she was confronted by three men, two of whom were armed with guns. The release said that the men took Heber into the building and took away $15,000 and demanded more valuables. The police said the woman was assaulted about her body with a firearm during which she managed to run out of the building and escape. Further, the police said as the bandits were leaving they discharged several rounds in the direction of Pastor Bagot, 55, and Toney, 30, who were in a nearby yard. Pastor Bagot was hit in his abdomen and elbow while Toney was hit in his left ankle. Both men and Heber were taken to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre where Heber was treated and the two men were transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where they were admitted.
‘Stared death in face’
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday via phone, Heber said she stared death in the face as on more than one occasion one of the men, whom she said was more aggressive than the two others, threatened to kill her and exclaimed “you gat to dead!”
The woman said she had just arrived home and taken off her clothes and then remembered she had a bag on the line outside so she wrapped herself in a bath towel and opened the back door to get it.
“I just pick and turn around to go inside back when them three man run up deh stairs and attack me. Deh tell me to lie down on the floor and how deh come fuh all deh money,” the woman said.
She said she quickly dropped to the floor. While one man remained outside standing guard, the other two entered the house and tumbled up everything as they continued demanding money.
“Deh ask me where is me husband money and I show dem some of the spots he does hide it but I ent know if they find any because them keep asking for more,” the woman said. She said she then took down her handbag and handed the men $20,000- she said it was after she spoke to the police she realised that the sum was $20,000 and not $15,000- but the men told her that that was not enough and that they needed more.
“One a dem tell me how deh guh kill me and how I must give them more money than that,” the woman said by which time her towel had come off. The woman said she had no other money and she became so desperate that she made a run for it through the back door with the intention of escaping but was blocked by the bandit in the yard.
“He catch me and vice me and me and he fall down on the ground and start to wrestle like… He den tek he gun butt and knock me in me head and burst it and then he knock me on me chin and it start to bleed. The next one turn and tell he kill me, it was terrible in the yard,” the woman recounted.
The men forced her back into the house and this time one of them tied her hands behind her back with her chair backs.
After they kept demanding more money the woman said she told them to search at the top of the wardrobe and both of the bandits in the house decided to do just that.
“I peep in de room and I see both a dem searching and I loose off de chair back and walk easy and go to the back door. I run down the stairs and through de gate and I don’t know how de one in de yard ent stop me but I just run out naked skin and hollering ‘thief, thief’ hard, hard.”
She said by the time the two in the house realised she had escaped a neighbour had opened a door and rescued her.
Heber said she escaped through her front gate which led to a public road and the bandits realizing that persons were alerted chose to go through the back.
“Dem start shooting and I don’t really know how pastor and de brother get shoot, but pastor live in de street behind me,” the woman said.
“But right now I am in pain because deh beat me a lot and I ent had no clothes but I couldn’t shame I had to get away,” Heber said.
“One a dem had a long gun and de other had a short gun and de next one ent had nothing.
It was de one with the long gun who was very dangerous, he keep saying how he would kill me. The one with the short gun I start to reason with he and calm he down,” the woman said. She said she later discovered that the men stole a gold chain and she is not sure if they stole any money from her husband.
She said she operates a shop and while both the shop and her home were raided by thieves before, Saturday night was the first time she had encountered bandits. Heber said it is an experience she would not wish on anyone.
