On Wednesday, an Oakland business was left with tens of thousands of dollars in damage after what the owner believed was a failed break-in. Now, the business is turning to the community to ask for support as they move forward.
Surveillance video from Tay Ho shows three cars in front of the restaurant on 12th and Webster streets in Oakland at around 4:30 a.m.
The footage shows a masked person running out of one car and trying to ram another car into the restaurant. Then, another person ran out and tried the same thing.
Two cars drive off, leaving the third lodged in the glass door. Based on photos and videos from Tay Ho, that third car appears to be a red Hyundai four-door sedan.
“With all the break ins in the past, [there was] nothing of this magnitude, this is like, they deliberately break in with a car and ram in it over and over,” owner Denise Huynh said.
Huynh said after several tries, these masked individuals appeared to give up. Nothing was taken from the inside, but they left tens of thousands of dollars in damage. Huynh was alerted to this from an alert on her security system and was stunned to see a car inside the front of the restaurant.
“This morning, I felt defeated, because I got here and I was like, I can’t believe this was happening again,” she recalled.
This Vietnamese restaurant has been open for 15 years. Huynh said the last break-in at the business happened three years ago, when the restaurant experienced three break-ins in one month.
Now, the owner plans to install a sliding gate outside the restaurant, which is something she’s resisted doing up until now.
“I feel like, this is the last straw, this is the last effort that I’m going to do, and if it doesn’t work, I mean, I might have to take my business somewhere else,” she said.
Alyssa Goard has the full report in the video player above.