East Oakland shop owner criticizes police response after burglary hit
OAKLAND, Calif. - Police are investigating a brazen robbery at a cellphone repair shop in East Oakland.
Surveillance video showed Mr. Phone Repair being ransacked by several suspects in a flash-mob-style burglary around 6 a.m. Wednesday.
The cellphone repair shop also sells new electronics and offers customers affordable prepaid plans.
One of the shop's owners, Abdullah Mohammed, said his business does a lot to help the community.
"Sometimes they're short on money, we will let them go," he said. Adding, "We fix about 10 to 15 phones every single day."
He said he called 911 repeatedly to report the burglary, even as the crime was in progress.
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"When I called 911, she told me, and I quote, she said 'Stop calling this, because this is an emergency line.' Like this is not an emergency. Like 15 people broke in. That's a crime isn't it?" Mohammed said.
He said he then began calling the non-emergency line.
"I'm on hold for 10 minutes and nobody picked up. I called actually five or six times," he said.
Police did not show up for more than nine hours.
"Every single phone that we have in here, we have a tracker inside the phone," said Mohammed."We know exactly where the phones are. We told the cops that over the phone and they didn't do anything."
Fear is now a factor at the recently opened shop.
"Sometimes you don't go to sleep. And you're in fear and you don't know when your store is gonna get broken into," said Mohammed.
He said the losses are likely to exceed $100,000.