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alexk
Guest
“Honestly, I thought he was going to pull the trigger.”
So said CNC3 news anchor Khamal Georges yesterday, as he recalled an early morning robbery outside his St James apartment where a gun was pointed to his chest by a bandit.
Luckily, the bandit did not pull the trigger. Instead, the man and an accomplice stole Georges’ Kia Sportage, his phone and other valuables, including the keys to his apartment. It was when Georges asked for the apartment keys the bandit shoved the gun in his chest.
“In my mind, I was saying you are going to get killed for asking for your house keys,” Georges recalled.
Officers of the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) recovered Georges’ vehicle around 10 am at the Bath Street Plannings in Port-of-Spain.
Georges was one of the thousands of people who attended the opening Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 match at the Queen’s Park Oval on Wednesday night. He left the venue around 2 am after staying back to lime with friends.
Georges, who was parked on Serpentine Road, was dropped to his vehicle by friends. He drove home by himself.
“As soon as I pulled up in front of my apartment two guys came from behind and at first I thought it was some of my neighbours,” he explained.
“When I looked at the guys, one’s face was covered and I noticed the other had a pistol in his hand,” he said.
The gunman told Georges, “Don’t make a scene.”
“He took the phone from my hand, he took the car keys as well and he allowed me to get out of the vehicle,” Georges said.
“He took my wallet and I was able to ask for my identification cards at least.”
The bandit took out the cash, bank cards and handed Georges back his wallet. Then Georges asked them for the keys to his apartment, which were still in the vehicle.
This seemed to aggravate the gunman.
“I asked them for my house keys and that is when the guy put the gun to my chest and he became aggressive at that point and honestly I thought like he was just going to pull the trigger,” Georges said.
The bandits instead jumped in Georges’ vehicle and sped off.
“I was disoriented for a bit trying to figure out what the hell happened,” he said.
Georges ran to the nearby St James Police Station to report the situation. He said the officers on duty were extremely helpful.
Georges posted about his ordeal on Facebook around 4.30 am. It quickly received spread online and garnered more than 3,000 shares, with people trying to help locate his vehicle.
The police found the vehicle around 10 am and took it to the Besson Street Police Street and dusted for fingerprints.
Speaking to the T&T Guardian afterwards, Georges said he was very traumatised by the ordeal.
“I’m still trying to come to terms with it because it shakes you up,” he said.
“We, as journalists, understand how easily loss of life can happen in situations like this. We have reported on several robberies where guys have gotten all they wanted and still pull that trigger, so you are kind of wondering where is the value that you attach to life and in that moment so many things run through your mind.
“Is this going to be it? Am I going to die? I have never had a gun pointed at me before, I didn’t know what their motive was, I didn’t know why they came, I didn’t know if they were marking me or following me for a long time or if this was just a random case where they followed me from the Oval after CPL.”
Georges said he was especially glad his mother, who was vacationing in T&T recently, had returned to Dominica.
“I’m happy to be alive. My mom was here she left on Sunday and wanted to stay to go to the CPL,” Georges said.
“All those things run through your mind, what if she was here. Honestly, it could have been so much worse and I am just very thankful to be alive.”
Georges said he was grateful to the police for their action in the matter and also all the people who tried to reach out to him.
National Security Minister Stuart Young also said he reached out to Georges yesterday and told him how sorry he was in the first instance that he had to fall victim to crime.
“Every law-abiding citizen of T&T who has a frontal…personal confrontation with crime, I feel for them as a human being and a citizen,” Young said at yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing.
“There is nothing pretty about crime…there is nothing good about crime. There is nothing this Government will condone about crime. It’s quite unfortunate whenever someone we know personally is affected by crime.”