An elderly Princes Town home invasion victim who narrowly escaped the ordeal with his life thanks to his nephew's brave efforts on the morning of January 15, believes hangings must resume to curb crime.
Sitting with Newsday inside his Mount Stewart home on January 16, the 76-year-old man, who did not want his name published, recounted the horrifying ordeal he believed he would lose his life in.
The pensioner said he woke up around 4 am, and took his dog out for a walk.
While standing in his yard shortly after 5 am, he said he heard a vehi cle stop, but did not pay much attention to it, believing someone came to the nearby gym.
However, before he knew it, he said three masked men came at him and with a gun to his head, forced him inside his house.
"We come here, we stand up. They say, 'Where the money?' I say, 'Let me tell you, we ain't have no money.'"
He said the men started beating him and threw him on the couch, ready to use a nearby extension cord to tie him.
"I say them go kill me. If them had get to go downstairs there, they'd have killed me and killed my sister-in-law."
Luckily, he said his 28-year-old nephew who lived downstairs heard the commotion and his screams and came in swinging with a cutlass, chasing them out of the house.
"They way he is, he big and tough. He does lift iron and thing.
"If them didn't have gun he'd have beat the three of them, because he young, he big and he powerful."
However, the frightened assailants opened fire on their way out, breaking several glass panes in the front door and grazing the pensioner on his right shoulder.
Only receiving an income from his pension, he believes the men targeted him because they saw him as an easy target while passing on the road.
Security footage of the incident posted on social media showed the ordeal lasting around one minute and twenty seconds.
The footage, from an outdoor shed, showed the man's nephew dealing at least two chops to one of the assailants as they fled the scene. Police said they had not yet received any information that someone visited a hospital to treat chop wounds.
However, the pensioner admits he is fearful the men would return to seek revenge for the injuries they received. He said he had difficulties sleeping since the attack as a result.
He believes his attackers were young men. He believes a lack of opportunities in the country was driving young people into a life of crime.
"People ain't getting work in this country and they looking for people that have. (But) have or ain't have, they coming.
"You ain't have, they killing you."
While the current state of emergency which began on December 30 was called to deal specifically with gang violence and weed out criminals, he believes bringing back the hangman would be an effective deterrent.
"You see, it have people in the prison and them have their phone and calling shots on the outside. All them kinda things supposed to stop.
"When people kill people and you catch them, you hang them instead of the people just living there (in prison
