Gang robs helpless blind woman

WHEN criminals turn to robbing blind people, “what next to expect?” Asha Alexander, 26, of Claxton Bay, has been pondering this question after a horrifying encounter with six bandits who ripped away her jewelry and cash. The incident occurred in front of West Mall on December 10, where visually impaired Alexander went Christmas shopping with a friend. Waiting in front the mall for her friend’s wife to pick them up, Alexander said she suddenly felt several hands all over her body. “I know it had to be about six of them. They were grabbing at my gold chain. They cut my purse. One hand ripped off my cell phone,” Alexander said.

Four Roads, Diego Martin police in  confirmed the report yesterday which stated that the bandits knew Alexander was blind. When she began to scream and stretched her hands out to touch her friend, Alexander said, the bandits shouted: “She blind! She blind!” Her blindness was not a deterrent, Alexander added, to the men who also abused her verbally. “I know it was six men because so many hands were all over me,” Alexander said. Alexander became blind at age five following cataract surgery at San Fernando General Hospital. She attends the Caribbean Union College in Maracas where she is preparing for the O-Level examination.

That night she was returning from classes in Maracas/St Joseph and asked her friend to be her guide so she could do some early Christmas shopping. The men searched the friend but trained their hands on the vulnerable Alexander. “He was my guide; I was coming all the way from Maracas to do my shopping,” Alexander said. “They mercilessly ripped away my hand-band, ring, earrings, chain and purse, “Alexander said. But she had not bought any gifts at the mall, Alexander said, except something to eat. “Imagine a blind woman being robbed; not having started her shopping for Christmas gifts,” a distraught Alexander sobbed at her Cedar Hill Road home yesterday.

Saying that she was helpless to do anything, Alexander described the men who robbed her as ruthless and lacking in compassion. She and her guide reported the matter to the police that night. Since the incident, Alexander said she has not gone shopping and does not intend to. “All my valuable possessions I intended to use for Xmas, has gone,” Alexander said. Asked how she intended spending Christmas Day, Alexander said: “It is sad to know that during this season of love and cheer, people can be so ruthless towards others.”