Robbers target Doony’s again!

While the bloodshed has proven too much for police to handle, armed holdups across the City is another record-breaker that continues to rise unabated.  But the criminal element seems to be taking sharp focus on the merchants in the downtown area.  In just one week brazen thieves have held up just as many stores from among the Indian community. 

The last attack came against popular Doony’s Store at the corner of Albert and Prince Streets.  And what’s more startling is that the robbers pulled off the crime in the height of activity, just before midday when students are leaving school for lunch and people are bustling about their midday meal.  But that did not stop three well-dressed crooks from riding up to the store, park their bikes and hold up the security guard and another employee.  They did not get what they went for – cash, because the cashier was not at the cash register just then.  But the trio still did not leave empty-handed, as they relieved the guard of his licensed weapon and a female employee of her cellular phone.  The proprietors of the store were conducting business in the back of the building when the culprits entered the establishment. 

The crime has triggered the frustrated proprietors to lash out at the lax police patrols in the business area of town.  A member of the Sadarangani family who owns Doony’s Store says the upsetting incident not only traumatized her employees, but left one of them injured.  It happened when the thief who wielded the gun hit him in the head as they struggled.  That employee was sent home for the day to recoup. 

The Police Department has announced its plans to increase patrols in the busy merchant sector, which will reportedly consist of a police officer at various intersections on Albert Street.  But that will come a little too late for the management and staff of Doony’s who have had to endure a second attack since August of 2008, and the many more businesses that have come under criminal attack.

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