Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tagman Media Alex Graham and his family were left traumatised after bandits early yesterday morning invaded their South Ruimveldt home and carted off an undisclosed amount of valuables, including cash and jewellery.
Graham told Stabroek News that the burglary unfolded during the wee hours of yesterday morning while he, his wife, and son were asleep.
Graham suspected that a member or members of the crews doing renovations at his home may be responsible. “I am convinced that it’s somebody who is on one of the crews working here because you had to know that this ladder is available to get to this window that is so high… there [are] a number of things you had to know. I have dogs, you had to know to bring food for the dogs. They bought food for the dogs. They fed the dogs,” he said.
The perpetrator/s entered the house by using a ladder to reach an ‘inaccessible’ window on the upper flat of the house. They escaped through the back door. “It’s inaccessible because it’s over 30 feet high and there is no ledge or anything that you could stand on to get to it. So we kind of keep that as a way of escaping in case of emergency in the house or anything…so that window is not protected because it’s not considered to be vulnerable,” Graham explained.
The man related that prior to the incident, he and his family were watching television on Thursday night. “…I fell asleep on the sofa in the family room watching TV. We were binge-watching some series and at about midnight and just after she (his wife) went up to bed. And I said, ‘You know let me just finish this episode’ and one thing led to the other until I fell asleep on the chair in front the TV,” he recalled.
He said he didn’t know anything was amiss until he heard screams coming from his wife, who had been asleep in her bedroom. “So I didn’t know anything until I heard her like about two or three feet away from me screaming,” Graham said.
He said when he woke, he learnt bandits were in the house and they were robbed. “When I woke up, she (his wife) was saying ‘We were robbed! We were robbed!’ But I couldn’t understand what she was talking about,” Graham added.
The bandit, he said, pointed a torchlight to his wife’s face and told her to be quiet. He then began to ransack the bedroom and washroom area at that part of the house.
The bandit escaped with a quantity of cash and jewellery and electronic devices, including cellphones, tablets and laptops. He also stole important documents including ID cards, bank cards and their driver licences. “They didn’t really touch our person at any time. He (the bandit) was two inches from her (Graham’s wife) while he searched the nightstand but he touched no one,” Graham said.
He recounted that afterward, he calmed his wife down and then proceeded to check on his son, who was also unharmed. “Then he and came back downstairs and we realise that the back door was opened. So we went through the back door and went searching to see whether he was still nearby but we didn’t see anything,” he said.
911
Graham further explain-ed that following the incident, he and his family spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to contact anyone to raise an alarm. “Because we had no phones and no laptops, no devices and then I said, ‘you know what, we have a house phone and we don’t use it.’ So we start to run around, looking for the house phone because the house phone have those cordless handsets. We found one and we started to call the police,” he said.
Graham said he estimated that he called the police via the 911 emergency system for more than an hour but got no answer. “I am estimating more than an hour…Got no answers,” he said.
They then tried to figure out what to do next. “Because these days you don’t know anybody phone numbers from your head. So everything is stored in the phone and I don’t know what to do. We are feeling helpless. The police wouldn’t answer,” Graham said.
He explained that he later found an old laptop and posted about the incident on Facebook. “Once I made the post, reporters who (saw) the post…I know they made some calls and that’s how I got a call from the police,” Graham said.
He said the incident has left him in a state of distress.
“I have followed these stories about 911 in a very detached way and it became very personal today. When somebody comes into your home, it is one of the greatest violations…here is a case where you wake up, you weren’t able to protect yourself, you weren’t able to protect your family, you weren’t able to protect your things and, in those cases, the only thing you can do is call law enforcement. When law enforcement lets you down…I think that’s the gut-wrenching thing to me. I failed to protect those dearest to me and the people who should backstop for me have failed me,” Graham said.
Stabroek News understands that a police investigation has been launched.
