St Philip community fears resident

Residents in one St Philip community say they are living in fear of one of their own and they are calling on authorities to urgently intervene.

Residents in Atlantic Park complained that since early last year, a male resident who lives in an apartment complex with his wife, was responsible for breaking car windows in the area, peeping into houses and threatening neighbours.

Sherry Anne Bourne who claims her husband was the latest victim, said she was so afraid that she believed it was time the matter was highlighted in the media.

“It is just escalating. He is literally threatening the entire neighbourhood’s peace and all of us are here scared and we can’t continue going like this.

“Two o’clock in the morning and you look outside, he’s outside pacing up and down with a stick. One of us in here got to dead first before somebody takes notice of what going on out here?” a visibly upset Bourne who lives across from the apartment building shouted during an interview with Barbados TODAY.

Residents said the man walks around with a stick, “spinning it around and hitting cars with it”. They also reported that he has been seen outside sharpening a sharp-edged tool while looking directly at another resident.

Bourne said two weeks ago, she was driving home with her two-year-old son when she saw the same man standing “in the middle of the road” drinking something from a cup. He refused to get out the road, she said.

“Monday night was the first time he hit my husband’s car. When he hit it he came onto our property and we made a report for trespassing and he said that he was going to kill my husband.

“And his wife came out and she was asking ‘did you hit my husband with your car?’ The police took about an hour to get here. He paced up and down in front of our house with the stick.

“When the police come he ran up to his apartment. It may seem small that it is the rear view mirror but that is my husband in there coming home late at night. He [the alleged offender] don’t go nowhere during the day,” Bourne said.

The resident indicated that she and her husband filed a report at the District “C” Police Station on Tuesday where they were told that they needed to get an estimate of the damage.

Bourne said in the meantime, she contacted the owner of the apartment complex and told her “we cannot condone them having people in here that putting the neighbourhood at risk”.

“I went online and I did research on him and he is not even Barbadian and here making Barbadians lives a living hell and he got his wife there and she condoning this foolishness,” Bourne said.

Meanwhile, Renee Alleyne, who is renting one of the apartments at the complex, said she was especially concerned about her neighbour’s actions. “I am self employed and I have customers that have vehicles that come here and I can’t take the risk in them feeling threatened coming to me.”

Alleyne explained that another concerned neighbour had informed her that as recently as Sunday he saw the accused peeping through his bedroom window.

She said the neighbour told her he had to shout at the accused to get him to move from the window.

“I am also fearful because it is me and my 16-year-old niece that I am taking care of. She takes public transport and right now I can’t take any chances.

“After witnessing and seeing the behaviour last night I don’t know what to think. And it is not only this district; all the surrounding districts have complaints for him,” Alleyne said.

She explained that she was also aware that residents have also complained that the accused hit their car with the stick when they were driving home at night.

The entrepreneur also recalled that another man who appeared to be a construction worker came to the complex with an opened wound on his face, claiming that the accused struck him with a stick because he asked him “buddy what’s up”.

“It is not fair that residents frighten for one person like this,” Alleyne said.

Barbados TODAY reached out to the landlord, who said she was looking in to the matter. Police Public Relations Officer Inspector Rodney Inniss also indicated that he was carrying out investigations.
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb