Oakland business owners fed up with "lawless" behavior after brazen break-in
Business owners in one Oakland neighborhood are fed up with what they call "lawless" behavior after a break-in at a popular smoke shop in Little Saigon.
It happened just after 3:00 a.m. Tuesday at Lucky 7 Cigarettes at 7th Avenue and East 12th Street in Oakland.
The thieves got into the shop using a stolen car to smash through security gates — a tactic that is becoming all too common in the Bay Area.
The surveillance video shows the thieves backing a white sedan through the front of the shop, not once but twice, to break down two sets of security gates. As soon as the gates were down, almost a dozen people converged on the shop stealing dozens of cartons of cigarettes worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The owner, Oahn Trinh, said she got an alert from the security company and watched the whole thing on her phone.
"I saw someone hit the car and go into my store. My hands were shaking like that because I was very scared," she said.
She and her husband have owned the shop for 26 years, and in the past three years, they've spent more than $100,000 repairing damage from the previous break-ins and installing a second set of security gates. Now, she has to do it all over again.
"All this crime is out of control," said Jim Nguyen.
He's with the Unity Council as part of the Rapid Response team to help business owners after something like this happens.
"I think it's lawlessness. I think it's lack of conscience. I just don't see how you're going to deter these guys, you know," said Nguyen.
According to the Oakland Police Officers Association, the union that represents the OPD officers, the reason criminals are getting more brazen is because of a lack of police staffing as well as the Oakland Police Department's pursuit policy.
"We've shown up to the scene of a burglary and if the suspect is fleeing, unfortunately, we can't go after them. We have to sit there and watch them and it's embarrassing," said Huy Nguyen, the president of the OPOA.
He said the current policy only allows Oakland Police to chase suspects if they were involved in a violent offense or if they're known to have a gun. He said that's part of why criminals feel they can get away with it.
"People from outside this county, outside this city know that they can come to Oakland or Alameda County and commit crime, and there's no accountability," he said.
Many business owners feel the only way they can protect their shops is to take matters into their own hands, like Cam Huong Restaurant which was recently broken into by thieves using a stolen car. Owners put up huge concrete blocks along the sidewalk to prevent it from happening again.
A few blocks away at Quality Tech Automotive thieves stole all the equipment out of the shop back in September using a stolen car to ram through the shop door. The owner, Bruce Vuong, installed two massive steel barriers they pull across the shop doors at night.
"Now they have to use a bulldozer to take that thing out. We have to live like animals out here to protect ourselves," he said.
Back at Lucky 7, Oahn doesn't know if they can stay in business after this latest break-in due to the cost of the stolen product as well as the cost of repairs.
"Is this what we want Oakland to be? Small business is the engine of the economy," said Jim Nguyen with the Unity Council.
Oakland Police said they did arrest two suspects in the Lucky 7 case but are not releasing their names at this time. KPIX 5 asked if the pursuit policy kept officers from chasing after other suspects who might have been fleeing the scene.
Oakland Police said in a statement they weren't releasing that information.