OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – An Oakland business owner is dealing with back-to-back robberies. He says two of his gas stations got robbed on the same day within minutes of each other.
The robberies happened around 3 a.m. Monday. The stations’ owner Arash Salkhi owns a total of four gas stations in Oakland. He says all of them have been robbed 5-6 times each within the last year.
And with the two recent robberies, he says he doesn’t know if he can make it as a business owner in Oakland.
Surveillance video from Grand Gas on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland (included above) shows an employee pleading as a group of masked men pry open the door and jump over the counter.
The men then empty the trash can and fill it with cigarettes off the back shelves. Salkhi says he was disturbed watching the footage and says police didn’t show up.
“And my employee is calling 911 screaming on the phone, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ and no one is showing up. It’s just ruthless,” Salkhi said.
And at Fuel 24/7 down the road, robbers smashed their way into the storefront and took off with a trash can full of cigarettes.
“We called the police. You’d think the police would be on site, not on the first robbery but the second robbery. They’re nowhere to be found,” Salkhi said.
On Dec. 29, at another gas station Salhki owns, video (included above) shows a robber smashing their way through a bulletproof cage where an employee is.
Salkhi says he’s considering closing his Oakland stores because he can’t afford the cleanup costs and does not want his employees to get hurt.
“There is no law and order in Oakland, and I don’t know what to do,” he said.
Salkhi says he’s written letters to the Oakland mayor’s office, the D.A. and Oakland police asking why 911 response times are slow, and he has not received a response.
“I don’t see them saying one thing how to prevent these things to happen. All I saw is crime is down in Oakland, and with burglaries, I’m like you got to be kidding me, add insult to injury,” he said.
Salkhi said he replaced the doors to both gas stations but is worried about the robbers coming back again. He added that he is glad Prop 36 passed but doesn’t have faith in Oakland police to enforce the new law.
OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – An Oakland business owner is dealing with back-to-back robberies. He says two of his gas stations got robbed on the same day within minutes of each other. The robberies happened around 3 a.m. Monday. The stations’ owner Arash Salkhi owns a total of four gas stations in Oakland. He says all […]
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