Armed bandits invaded the home of a Better Hope shopkeeper last evening and carted off cash, jewellery and other valuables.
According to Tricia Hoosner, three men, whose faces were covered with red bandannas, made their way into her shop, and assaulted two of her patrons who were outside her shop before the ordeal was over. She said that the men took $80,000 from the shop, as well as phone cards and cell phones that were used for her credit business.
She explained that she was taking a bath on the bottom flat of her house when she realised that something was not right. The young woman said that she was overwhelmed by the feeling she should leave the bathroom to check on things outside.
Once outside the woman said that she saw a man in front of her door on the lower flat of the house, and realised that another was at the top of the stairs leading to the top flat of the house. The man in front of her door told her, “Go back inside sweet girl.” The man at the top of the stairs was armed while the man stranding at her door was not. Additionally, the third assailant, who remained in front of the shop throughout the ordeal, was armed with a “long rifle.”
The woman would later learn that by the time the two men got to the house they had already assaulted and robbed two of her patrons, and run through the shop. She said that her sister, who was in the shop when the men arrived, was taken from the shop by the men and taken upstairs.
However, her sister reportedly got into the house before her assailants and then prevented them from getting in by using her body to barricade the door. Realizing that he was not going to get into the top flat of the house, the man reportedly directed his attention to Hoosner, relieving her of several articles of jewellery she was wearing. The woman told Stabroek News that after the man realised that some of the jewellery he took from her was not made of real gold he gave them back.
By this time, Hoosner’s sister raised an alarm in the community by screaming and several neighbours assembled.
The men then ran out of the yard where they joined a third accomplice, and made good their escape in a waiting car which was parked a short distance from where the robbery took place. As they left though, the men fired two gunshots, intended to scare away the small crowd that was beginning to form.
Hoosner said that the ordeal started at 20:00 hrs and was over by 20:20. She said that the police were called but that a rank stationed at the Brickdam Police Station, who arrived a half hour after the incident started, responded. Ranks from the Sparendaam Police Station, she said, arrived some time after.
