Sisters Refuse To Back Down After Being Attacked While Selling Cookies In Brooklyn Subway Station
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Two sisters with an entrepreneurial spirit said Sunday that they will not let an attack by a group of teenagers put them out of business.
As CBS2's Dave Carlin reported, the girls were selling homemade treats at a Crown Heights, Brooklyn subway station when they were mugged.
It was 15-year-old T'yona Cruickshank's idea to enlist 10-year-old sister Arianah and bake cookies, package them perfectly and sell them to subway riders.
"It's hard work. It's challenging," Arianah said. "But it's really worth it."
"People love our cookies," T'yona said.
But the opposite of love is what they said they got from a group of teens in the Franklin Avenue subway station Wednesday evening.
"My sister and I, we were downstairs in the Franklin Avenue station selling our cookies. A group of girls came," T'yona said.
"Maybe because they were bored and they couldn't find nothing else to do but cause trouble," Arianah said.
The station young strangers had the sisters surrounded at the foot of a staircase up to the street. T'yona said when she took photos of them, the attackers pounced – first spraying the sisters' faces with an unknown substance.
"She took the cookies, threw them on the floor, and knocked the tray over," Arianah said.
"They were like punching me in my head and cornering me into the wall," T'yona said.
The girls' mother says said is often with them when they sell cookies, but not this time she was running an errand at a bank it was there when she got the urgent call to come to the station.
Marvell Cruickshank said two adults helped her kids -- stopping the fight and calling for help.
"I'm very thankful," she said.
Police quickly arrested two 16-year-old girls and an underage boy on charges of assault and robbery, because they allegedly stole T'yona's camera.
"It's not going to stop us from selling cookies," she said.
T'yona's elbow was still scratched and a bit bruised Sunday, but she has gone back to baking with her sister.
"I'm going to try to put it behind me," Arianah said.