The business owner of an Oakland, California, gas station was sidelined by a flash mob heist on Friday, in which hundreds of crooks ransacked the shop, particularly after police took hours to respond.
“My relatives and uncles were talking about how the U.S. is the place to be, and then you get out here and see something like this happen, and it’s scary. “It just shouldn’t be happening,” Sam Mardaie, a Yemeni immigrant whose store suffered around $100,000 in damage, told Fox News on Sunday.
“It’s just unbelievable,” he added.
According to The New York Post, Mardaie claimed that between 80 and 100 people came into the gas station last week after attending a neighboring auto show, ripping shelves apart, and stealing everything they could find, including $25,000 from the cash register.
According to the story, the burglars were displeased since the 24-hour business only provided window service throughout the evening hours.
The entire incident was filmed on camera, with crooks removing stuff from refrigerators, behind the counter, and off shelves.
Mardaie told “Fox & Friends Weekend” that he had worked for ten months to create his customer base since the store opened, but everything was lost in one hour.
According to the Post, Mardaie claimed that police took nine hours to react to his requests for help. Returning to his dissatisfaction with the police’s response on Sunday, he labeled it “unacceptable.”
THREE Suspects Face Charges for KILLING NEW ZEALAND TOURIST DURING Newport Beach THEFT
“We received no response,” he added, adding that he plans to speak with the local chief of police on Wednesday.
“We had no explanation from them, not even an apology [for] not even turning there, not even having the civility to show up. I could understand if they arrived an hour or two later after the event, but not until 2:30. That’s when they showed up,” he added.
According to FOX 2, a California Bay Area affiliate that encompasses Oakland, two employees were in the store at the time of the incident and were intimidated by suspects.
Heartbreak at Coney Island: SISTERS Aisha and Zainab Mohammed PRONOUNCED DEAD AFTER WATER RESCUE
According to a statement sent to FOX NEWS, local law officials “said they received and responded to the call about a burglary at a 76 gas station nearby around 90 minutes later and had initially ranked the crime as a Priority 2 — meaning no suspects were on scene and that the crime can be reported online.”
According to the outlet, when local police received video of the incident, they categorized it as a Priority 1 crime and dispatched an officer to the area.
Local police enforcement also told the media that they were reacting to a spectacle at the adjacent airport.