Two armed men attempted to rob Touba Electronics in South Harlem. Photo: Xian Bu/Northattan
It’s one of the worst nightmares for hundreds of small business owners in Northattan neighborhoods like South Harlem: a dark night, quiet streets, no customers – and then, someone with a weapon comes in. Alone and vulnerable, an owner or sales clerk has to decide how to react.
At Touba Electronics, 131 W. 116th St. last Saturday around 8 p.m., one employee sat surfing the Internet as unseasonal snow fell outside, keeping customers away. The employee, who did not want his name published out of fear for his safety, said he heard someone enter the store. Before he could grasp what was happening, a gun was pointed at him and a man demanded “Give me money.”
His reaction: “If you got a chance to fight, you fight.” And fight he did, along with another employee of the electronics store, who was about to leave when the two robbers arrived, each holding a gun.
They tried to grab the guns from the robbers’ hands. “We don’t know how we did it, just followed instinct,” said the Touba Electronics employee. The entire struggle lasted perhaps three minutes, perhaps five, he said.
During the fight, one of the would-be robbers’ guns went off. Luckily, no one was hurt. “We don’t know which gun it was or how it happened,” said the employee, who could recall few details, including the colors of the intruders’ jackets. Both men got away, but one dropped his gun before running from the store.
The Touba Electronics employees may have been following their instincts, but not all small business workers react the same, if an informal survey of nearby shops provides any guidance.
Kevin Sellers, co-owner of Marilyn’s clothing shop on West 116th Street, said that when two armed men tried to rob his aunt as she worked alone at the store a few years ago, she did not hand over any money. Instead, she ran screaming from the shop. Then she took a few months off from work.
Sellers himself uses a different strategy. If he’s working alone in the evenings, he waits for customers just outside the store. “They can’t rob me from outside,” he said.
But Bertrand Thomas, who helps out at his sister’s vintage store on the same street, believes fighting back is the best solution. “If you don’t fight back, they’re going to come back the next day and get you. They won’t be back to that guy,” he said, referring to the victim at Touba Electronics.
Other store owners in South Harlem say they have armed themselves in case of robbery.
“Everybody knows me, and everybody knows that I have a gun,” said Abdo Aonajai, owner of a deli store at 121 W. 116 St., which has run six years without robberies. Aonajai said that because he lives in a neighborhood where “a lot of people have guns,” being tough is the way to scare robbers away.
Just next door to Touba Electronics, in the phone card store run by her parents, 14-year-old Oumou Barry is not too worried about robberies. She said the store has been open 10 robbery-free years. But her 24-year-old brother, who declined to be identified by name, said that when his sister is working in the shop by herself, “we usually lock the door.”
Their mother witnessed part of last Saturday’s Touba Electronics robbery attempt as she headed out of her own store, according to her son. She heard the gunshot and saw the robbers run away, leaving their family unnerved. “She was shaken by that,” the son said. “She had to take a cab to go home. Usually she takes the train.”
At Touba Electronics, the employee who did not want to be identified said he phoned 911 as soon as the would-be robbers fled last Saturday night. Police arrived quickly, took the gun that had been dropped in the store and returned on Sunday to get the store’s video surveillance footage. As of Wednesday night, police told Northattan that no arrests had been made in the case.
Police statistics show 180 robberies have been carried out so far this year in the 28th precinct, which includes South Harlem. The police department did not respond to a request for information breaking down how many of those robberies occurred at small stores like Touba Electronics.
Friends and family have reached out to comfort the traumatized Touba Electronics employee since the robbery attempt. He said the only weapon the store keeps is a baseball bat, which he did not have time to grab. He said he is now thinking, for the first time, about buying a gun for protection.
