Carjack trauma

by MARIA BRADSHAW mariabradshaw@nationnews.com

TWO WOMEN, VICTIMS of a traumatic attempted carjacking last week, are warning Barbadians to carefully inspect their surroundings.

They had just exited PriceSmart on Green Hill, St Michael, Thursday evening, when two masked men armed with “big guns” pounced to steal their vehicle.

One of the assailants who jumped into the driver’s seat apparently did not realise he was sitting on the key and after trying for several minutes to locate it, both men ran off in view of shocked onlookers who had gathered.

One woman, who is nursing bruises about her body, recounted how around 7 p.m. she got into the driver’s seat feeling a presence on her side.

“My colleague had one foot in and one foot out. I was just about to flip the door because I’m usually in the habit when I get in, I just central lock.

“As I looked up this person opened my door and I looked up to see this figure in all black, this hooded figure. The only thing I could see would have been the eyes. The person had on a mask and you could see those grills just beyond his mouth. He held a gun, a fairly big gun. It was pointed at me. I could hear him saying, ‘I want the car, I want the car. Give me the car,’” the middle-aged woman recounted.

She instinctively jumped into the passenger seat as her colleague had been dragged out by another masked gunman.

“So I started scooting back and eventually I jumped out of the car, but I don’t know how I got out. I moved backwards and I was trying to wiggle my feet away from the vehicle because I anticipated that they would have been driving off and I didn’t want them to drive on me.”

She said within seconds the other masked gunman jumped into the passenger seat but then quickly got out, as did the other man in the driver’s seat.

“He came again with the gun and he held onto my chest . . . dragging me. He was saying something which I could not understand. My colleague came and she was holding me, and actually pulling me away from him. He said, ‘I want the keys, I want the keys.’ I responded, ‘I don’t have the keys.’

“He kept saying that, and it seemed like forever. I had money in my hand, in my fists and I told myself he probably thinks I got the keys in my hand so I threw the money out of my hand and I opened my hands, like in the surrender position. And I said, ‘I don’t have the keys, the keys in the car.’ With that, he jumped back into the vehicle.”

It was then that she ran to her

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colleague and their screams brought people running, with one man recording the assailants in the vehicle.

“When you looked into the vehicle, it looked as though it was a scene from a movie because the lights were on. All you could see were the eyes of these assailants and they were rummaging around, I imagine, looking for the car keys.

“A lot of people gathered around and they did not seem to find what it is that they were looking for so they jumped out, closed the door and ran towards the polyclinic.”

She was amazed that the men only wanted the vehicle.

“I had money in my hand which I threw to the ground and there was money lying around in the car and groceries in the back seat but all they wanted was the car.

“These things are minor because I have my life. Now that I’ve gotten over it, I’m not as shaken as I thought I would be. But indeed, I am more vigilant and I will want to warn others, not just women, but anybody.”

She was informed that cameras in the area showed the two men entered the complex in a vehicle, exited it when she and her friend walked out of PriceSmart and their driver left.

The woman’s colleague said she was dragged out of the passenger seat but “put up some resistance”.

“We were shaken and we would have had some pains and so on about the body but we had life because even though the men were armed, they did not discharge the firearms, thank God. It is important that even though this experience was a traumatic one there are way too many reports of persons who are victims of such attacks and we hope that by sharing, that persons would understand the seriousness of what is happening because we are usually very vigilant. We look around and we try not to be in any place that’s isolated or dimly lit,” she said.

The DAILY NATION was unsuccessful in reaching Assistant Commissioner John Boyce, who is in charge of crime.

There were several reports circulating that a soldier was carjacked last Friday night near the Hotpot in Brighton, St Michael, and a woman assaulted with a gun and her vehicle stolen on Saturday night at Warrens, St Michael.