Taxi man escapes armed hijackers
Stabroek News
November 29, 2002
A taxi driver was forced to jump out of the trunk of his car and run through a muddy field to escape two armed bandits who hijacked his car last evening.
The 28-year-old father of two was still visibly shaken last night as he spoke to this newspaper at the East La Penitence Police Station. He was barefoot and his clothes were covered in mud.
According to the man, he was stopped at the corner of Sheriff and Duncan Streets by a person “neatly dressed in a nice checkered shirt that was buttoned right up, everything.”
He said the man told him that his friend across the road was coming on the journey too.
The pair jumped into the car and told him to drive to Baramita Street in South Ruimveldt.
The man said just before he turned into the street he asked which house they were going to and they told him the second house on the corner.
“I somehow sense that something wasn’t right so I just turn and tell them that this is me hometown. They then ask me if I know the girl wah does live in the house we stop at. I really thought them men know a girl in the house fo truth.”
He said after he stopped, the man in the front seat got out and approached his side of the car. “He then pull out a big gun and pointed it at me.” His accomplice then emptied the driver’s pocket of his wallet and other items “I then beg dem not to kill me and they turn and tell me, ‘bannas we ‘ent go kill you, people gaf fo dead, bannas gaf fo dead tonight’”
He was then ordered out of the car and was told he would be riding in the trunk. He said as he opened the trunk, a minibus drove up and the driver momentarily stopped.But the hijackers told him to pretend as if he was fixing something.
One of them then waved the minibus away. The man said after he was stripped of his jewellery and other articles he was placed in the trunk.
He said the car had been driven around for a short while when he managed to open the trunk and found himself just past the Tucville Bridge corner coming onto Aubrey Barker Street and in the vicinity of the La Familia Country Club.
He jumped out and started screaming for help and ran through an empty lot behind the club which was swampy and full of “cow holes and mud.” When he jumped out the men stopped and the driver screamed, “bannas wa happen with you?” he made an attempt to follow him but abandoned the idea, jumped into the car and sped away. (Samantha Alleyne)
