Overgrown lots in Diamond a haven for criminals

Apr 04, 2011 News

– community still plagued by daytime burglaries

Despite the presence of two Community Policing Groups, residents of Diamond on the East Bank of Demerara say that they are still being plagued almost at will by burglars and other criminals.
They say that the presence of several empty house lots that are overgrown with bushes help to provide hiding places for those bent on criminal activity.
The community is targeted particularly by burglars who operate in the daytime, when residents are at work.
Last Thursday, Gunwattie Sirpaul came home at around 18:00 hrs to her Thirteenth Avenue, Diamond residence to discover that the grill-work had been removed from one of her windows.
Fearing that the perpetrators were the same bandits who had fled into the community after robbing the Guyana Stockfeeds Limited, Ms. Sirpaul contacted the police at the Diamond/Grove Police Station.
When the ranks arrived, the woman entered the building and discovered that her home had been ransacked. The thieves had carted off $US500, a diamond ring valued at $345,000 and three pairs of earrings that Ms. Sirpaul had placed on an altar.
She was reassured that detectives would return to take fingerprints but this has not been done.
Ms. Sirpaul’s home is flanked to the north and south by two empty lots that are overgrown with dense bush. She believes that the thieves might have secreted themselves there before entering her house.
“It’s not safe,” she said. “I does be afraid to be outside when the place is dark.”
Bushy lots like the ones near Sirpaul’s home abound in Diamond and Grove.
At a recent press conference to mark the 35th anniversary of Community Policing in Guyana, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee had stated that a number of grass cutters had been distributed to Community Policing Groups in an effort to clear areas of bushes.
Two Community Policing Groups have been established to patrol the vast Diamond Housing Scheme. One was established to patrol Section A, Block X, while the other patrols the middle and low income sections.
Chairman of the new CPG, Phillip Ishmael, had told Kaieteur News that the group was established in the wake of a rise in criminal activity in the community. He explained that the scheme is too large for one group to adequately patrol.
He revealed that at least six homes in the middle-income areas were broken into recently. Most of these breakages occur in the daytime when the homeowners are at work.

One of the overgrown lots near Ms. Sirpaul’s home

Recently also, bandits attacked a Diamond New Scheme family in their home after trailing them from the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
Mr. Ishmael disclosed that the group plans to mount security cameras on utility poles from First to Sixth Avenue, and persons will be employed to monitor them.