Burglaries causing setback, says small shop owner

A couple who runs a small business on Upper Bay Street at the entrance of Massy Stores is calling on the person or persons who have been burglarizing their small shop to cease from the “wicked act”.

Cassandra Simmons-Williams and Augustus ‘Boiler’ Williams have been operating the small business in the same spot since 1985. On Sunday, sometime between 2 and 5 a.m., a burglar ripped off the lock at the front of the shop and made off with cash and goods{{more}}, amounting to around EC$800.

This is the fourth time that the shop has been burglarized.

Cassandra said that she was at home on Sunday morning at around 6.30, when someone came to her and told her that the shop had been broken into. The person made off with bottles of strong rum and other liquor, petroleum jelly, cosmetics and a sum of cash.

A closed-circuit camera, located at the nearby Massy Supermarket, picked up a man dressed in all black and the police are investigating.

Cassandra said that she is confused as to how the person managed to break into the shop undetected, although a security guard booth is located just a few feet from the shop’s entrance and she is sure that the guard was present.

“The shop is in the open and it’s kind of funny. I think that the hours it got broken into somebody could have saw something. This is bad and it keeps occurring,” said Cassandra on Monday, from the entrance of her shop.

She said that the burglary has set back the business.

“I am a poor struggling, hard-working woman and when you have to come and do these things to poor people who struggling to make a living, it’s sad,” stressed Cassandra, who noted that sometimes acts of this nature are carried out by cocaine/crack users.

“I want justice and I go glad if the police could get them because they keep doing it. The picture look as if is a young person. Sometimes we say is vagrants doing these things, but the look of the person doesn’t look like a vagrant. Is young people who does not want to work doing these things, preying on people,” said the angry Cassandra.

Augustus did not have much to say, only that he would like the person caught.