By eyewitness accounts, the bright sun would rise over many of the looters who went on an unexpected, overnight shopping spree on East Fordham Road on Monday, Jun. 1, 2020. As dawn set in, the now-infamous creatures of a night of madness seemed to scurry home like rats running from a kitchen light.

In the early hours of Jun. 2, there were repeated sightings of mostly, young men, many carrying what looked like brand new, full backpacks, quickly walking in one direction or another as police vehicles continued to speed back and fourth across East Fordham Road still responding to calls.

It looked like a war zone or Category 5 storm had hit the area later that morning, the devastation was so quickly evident outside the Kingsbridge Tobacco & Convenience Shop, located at 271 East Kingsbridge Road. Debris from the shop, and shattered glass panes from the bus shelter located in front of the store littered the sidewalk. The shop is unrecognizable.

Its owner, Shamsan Almunantscr, knows what war looks like; he comes from Yemen, one of the most dangerous war zones in the world. He and his employee, Sadam Sayad, looked around the store in disbelief. The shelves lay practically bare; what wasn’t stolen ended up on the floor.

By 6:30 a.m., Almunantscr was inside the shop, cleaning up the damage and waiting for police to arrive to make a report. Even at that early hour, police were still consumed with gangs of marauding youth, still running in packs of ten or twenty along Tiebout Avenue and on Andrews Avenue to the west, after a night of looting and violence in the Bronx.

“A lot of damage and a lot of food was lost – a lot of damage. It goes in the garbage,” said Almunantscr. “You know, I don’t care when they break it or they take it. If they break something, I don’t care, but why you gotta make damage like this?”

The two men said they closed their shop at 9:00 p.m. on Monday night but later got a call to say that it was being vandalized.

As he tiptoed through the field of debris inside his store, like one might cross a minefield, Almunantscr said, “I got video but they broke the TV.” The monitor was, indeed, smashed and lay in pieces on the floor.

Asked who did it, he said the crowd was “mixed” made up of young “Black, White, and Spanish” men, seconds before jumping over debris and nearly slamming his head into the shop’s counter. Almunantscr doubted that any of the young hooligans were his customers or even residents of the community.

Asked if he would rebuild, Almunantscr simply said, “Yes,” before adding, “It’s sad man. Why they gotta go break into a store like this, man?” Referring to the daily protests in cities across America after the horrific death of unarmed African-American, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis on May 25, Almunantscr fumed, “If they want justice, this is not justice”.

It is, unknown, in fact, if the looters were actually protestors attending the marches or not. Police have suggested it was more likely that organized gangs, with no affiliation to the protestors, planned and orchestrated the violence and looting.

Sayad, still wearing his face-mask, an American flag bandanna that was falling below his chin, said of the violence, “At Fordham Plaza, they broke everything. Next door, at the furniture store, they tried to break in but they couldn’t; the gate was too heavy.”

Almunantscr later said, “They were going to burn the store last night; somebody was calling me. They were going to burn it but some people said, ‘Don’t burn it; just take the stuff and leave’.” He then pulled out his phone to show a video of the store’s surveillance system which caught the perpetrators setting fire to an apparent pile of garbage in front of the store before breaking in.

Speaking of his native Yemen, Almunantscr said, “In our country, we have a war and we don’t even loot, not one soda. They fight on all sides, but business is business”.

Asked if he was sorry he came to America, he replied, “No, we’re not sorry, but you have to do something with this country”.

Sayad added, “We helped the community 24-7. It helps to know who’s the people doing this problem, and take them to jail”. Both men said they couldn’t identify the youths in the video because it was dark, and because they were wearing face-masks, though they surmised that this was likely not out of fear of catching the coronavirus.

Almunantscr continued, “Listen, we ran from our homes to get away from war, to get to a safe place and say ‘God bless America’. This country has to do something. This mistake is not with this country, but we have to watch for these people”. Recalling previous shoplifting incidents at his store, he added, “The people doing that [expletive], they try and do it all the time. You don’t know how many times.”

Asked if ten years was a fair sentence for looting, Almunantscr, a married man with four kids, replied, “Ten years is nothing. They should do life”. Because of the coronavirus, he said he didn’t want to close because he sells fresh produce to the community like milk and eggs. “Now, I’m not going to open for how long?” he said.

Almunantscr said he does have insurance coverage but said it wouldn’t cover that much, before reflecting once again on the night of violence and crime in the City in general. “Everywhere in the city, they’re breaking in,” he said. “But the problems in this country, they should fix it.”

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.