Home invasion kept quiet

Although police did respond to questions about it this week, a home invasion that occurred on 8 May in Bodden Town was not immediately reported by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service.

A police report on the incident, that took place in the Northward Road area, read as follows:

“We can confirm that [police] are currently investigating an aggravated burglary which was reported to have taken place around 3am on 8 May, 2012, in the Northward area. At this time two men broke into a house, held and threatened their victim and demanded cash. They then made off from the scene with a sum of cash.”

Police did not specify whether the male victim involved, believed to be in his 60s, was injured during the attack.

This is at least the second major incident this year that police have not proactively reported. A police spokesperson said the 8 May home invasion was not reported proactively due to an “operational decision”.

The other incident involved an armed robbery that involved three victims being tied up by their assailants at a George Town condo complex in March. That incident was apparently not immediately reported to police.

Instead, the Caymanian Compass was notified of the incident via an e-mail that went out to residents at a condo complex along the Esterley Tibbetts Highway.

According to the strata statement on the incident: “Four masked men with machetes and a gun accosted a resident of Lakeside while [he was] returning to his apartment. They entered the apartment tied up the three occupants, stealing some cash and a few pieces of jewellery. They did not harm the three occupants of the apartment.”

Apparently, the robbery happened sometime after midnight in the early morning hours of Monday, 5 March. Residents of the complex told the Compass that the suspects in the incident waited in the stairwell of the building where the robbery occurred to confront the man.

It was not immediately clear why police had not been contacted immediately about the robbery.

A police spokesperson related the following about the incident: “We received a report … of an incident at Lakeside … The facts of the matter have not yet been established and police enquiries are ongoing.”

The RCIPS has never said anything further regarding the incident.