Lone gunman robs DHL office

A lone gunman walked into the DHL office in Scarborough on Tuesday, ordered employees to lie on the floor, collected $11,000 in cash, and escaped, on foot.

The DHL office is located on the second floor of the two-story wooden Charles James Building at the corner of Garden Side and Carrington Streets, downtown Scarborough, across from the Port Authority.

Store attendant Kareem Quashie told Newsday Tobago that the gunman, who wore a cap which hid his face, came into the office, brandished a gun, and demanded the cash.

“We gave him all the money from in the safe and in the cash register. I was shaken up but I am good and I thank God for life,” Quashie said. Quashie said there were only two employees in the office at the time and no customers, and that the gunman ordered them to lie on the floor.

“He, the gunman, came in earlier asking for information to do a transaction, then left. When he returned, he took a gun out and made everyone lie on the floor,” he said. Quashie described the gunman as being in his late 20s.

A traumatised supervisor, Karen Young told Newsday Tobago:

“I do not know what to say about this and I don’t know how to respond, I just want to go home. We did everything he asked us to do just to get him out of the store.”

Young said that this was the first time the office has been robbed, describing the incident as shocking in that the incident took place in broad daylight. She said that robberies have taken place in the mall previously, with first floor stores broken into after business hours. The last robbery at the mall occurred late last year, she added.

Storeowners in the mall were angry at the incident rather than afraid as they declared that they would be keeping their businesses open.

One store owner who did not want to be identified said:

“I don’t feel good about this at all but I am not closing my shop because of this; my door is open. I am concerned because these people (storeowners) are like my brothers and sisters around here…What we need is more strict security in the building. Up here is always quiet and you don’t see any armed security patrolling, so anyone could come and get away with anything.”

Another tenant described the incident as shocking.

“Tobago was never like this, it is really gone now. People have to watch themselves now in this mall,” she said.

Newsday discovered that a lone female security guard was assigned to patrol the mall, but apparently confined to duty on the ground floor only.

ACP Garfield did not provide details on the robbery, saying only that officers at the Scarborough Police Station were investigating the incident.