With crimes in Berbice on the rise and the Police acknowledging that more of their presence within the county in needed as an immediate measure to curb same, a New Amsterdam (NA) market vendor was on Sunday night robbed at gunpoint by five bandits who entered her Glasgow New Housing Scheme, home.
Wilma Alexander was at home with her three daughters when the bandits stuck.
Reports are about 01:45h, the vendor heard someone walking in her Lot 1312 Glasgow home, but thought it was one of her children.
Speaking with this publication the vendor said that she kept looking at the clock since she had to get up around 02:00h to get ready to go make her purchases at the market.
“The next thing I saw the door was opened… one guy came in first into the children’s room and then another one followed and then another one and when I saw the third one, I realised that they had guns. Then I realised that it was not the children walking, it is a robbery.”
She said that the men gained entry by removing five louver panes from a window. Alexander related that one of the gunmen pointed a gun at her and demanded cash and jewellery. She said another entered her room and started searching for valuables.
Meanwhile, the three others were in and out of her children’s rooms.
“I pulled out the purse and told him that this is all the money that I have. Told him that I don’t have gold and he told me to take off the ring on my finger. So I took off my wedding band and gave him and another ring I was wearing.”
She said the bandit who collected the purse from her opened it and informed the others that there was enough for each of them to get more than $10,000 each.
The shaken woman said that the man who had the gun was about to leave her room, but suddenly turned around and demanded more money. She said that he told her to lift her mattress. Under the mattress, the woman said, she had a $100 and he took it.
She said the men escaped with a quantity of jewellery, over $60,000, a laptop computer, an electronic tablet, cellular phones and a bird valued at over $150,000.
The 36-year-old woman explained that one of the bandits who was on her veranda noticed that her neighbour was awake and alerted the others.
“My neighbour tell me afterwards that she did not know that anything was going on, but she got up because she was feeling hot and she opened the window and raised up the curtain and went back under the net.”
However, the gunmen thought the woman saw them and one of them picked up a bottle and threw it at her window causing three louvers to break. The men then escaped on foot.
Alexander told this publication that there was need for street lights in the area, pointing out that while she has lights in her yard, it only extends to the road in front of her premises.
She also noted that heavy vegetation has taken over some lots at Glasgow New Housing Scheme and was urging the owners and regional authorities to clear the area.
The distraught woman said that a Police outpost in the area would be meaningful to residents, adding that Central Police Station and also the Sisters Police Station were far away.
