Chicago business owner whose convenience store was ransacked for the second time sues city for police inaction
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Walid Mouhammad, the owner of a convenience store in Chicago, is suing the city for police inaction after his store was robbed for the second time. Mouhammad had invested $300,000 in increasing security to the store after the first time he was looted in May. Mouhammad blames the police for his destroyed store, claiming "no one came to stop them."
Mouhammad's store was devastated when it was first looted in May, causing the store owner to invest heavily in security. He had installed security cameras and a new steel security door, which he watched the looters rip out in real-time through the security cameras. He said that the looting was much worse the second time around, as not only did the looters steal the store's merchandise, but ripped out the ATM machine as well.
Mouhammad claims that the looters spend around 25 minutes at his store, according to the Daily Mail, during which several calls to the cops were made. "No one came to stop them," in all that time, he told Fox News, adding that "Officers are seeing what is going on but are doing nothing." The building's landlords themselves made several calls as well. "I made six calls myself. The store owners, they made calls, my maintenance guys made calls," said building owner Tommica Foster-Akin to ABC 7 Chicago.
Mouhammad had only been open for 40 days after the first attack and now refuses to open the store until the city can provide some promise as to safety — not just for him, but for all small business owners in Chicago. "I want to know, are we protected or not? I want them to take care of the small businesses," he told Fox News. He plans to sue the city of Chicago for taking more than 25 minutes to respond to his distress call.
The looting comes in the wake of a police shooting in Englewood, Chicago, on Sunday, August 9, leading to widespread looting in the city that lasted well into Monday. The Chicago Police Force had promised to have more than 1,000 cops on the streets of the city in order to prevent more such looting. "The looters have made the point that we’re larger than you, we outnumber you, you’ve heard that in some of the crowds, we'll be back, this kind of empty threat, we are committed to deploying our resources as large as we have to be, not only to protect our downtown but also our neighborhood retail corridor," said Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown, according to WG9.
"We must show that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and not be let out of jail without any consequence. We as a group, not just police, prosecutors both state and federal are committed to making that happen," he added. This is of small comfort to Mouhammad, who asked Fox News "what my business has to do with it. If you have something against the officers or whatever, then why you come to break in our businesses, why you destroy us for?"