Chicago business owner plans to sue the city after being looted twice since May

A Chicago businessman says he’s going to sue the city after police failed to respond when his convenience store was looted for the second time since May. 

Walid Mouhammad’s convenience store was destroyed Monday, when the city experienced widespread looting. 

He said he watched the looters in real time on surveillance cameras as they ripped out the new steel security door that he’d recently installed, after spending $300,000 to repair the damage done when his store was first looted in May.   

‘I’ve been open for just 40 days, so who will be responsible for this?’ Mouhammad told ABC 7 Chicago.

Walid Mouhammad’s convenience store was destroyed Monday, when the city experienced widespread looting

Mouhammad said he watched looters via surveillance cameras as they destroyed his store

Mouhammad said he watched looters via surveillance cameras as they destroyed his store

He said that the looting the second time around was worse than before and that in addition to destroying the store, the looters stole merchandise and ripped out the ATM. 

Mouhammad said that the looters spent 25 minutes at his store, between breaking down the door and ransacking it. 

During that time, ‘no one came to stop them,’ he told Fox News, adding that ‘Officers are seeing what is going on but are doing nothing.’ 

Mouhammad’s landlords said they called police multiple times on Monday during the looting, but that authorities didn’t show up until it was too late. 

‘I made six calls myself,’ building owner Tommica Foster-Akin told ABC 7 Chicago. ‘The store owners, they made calls; my maintenance guys made calls.’ 

Mouhammad wants the city to show that they’ll be able to protect his store before he makes any repairs to reopen. 

‘I want to know, are we protected or not? I want them to take care of the small businesses,’ he told Fox News, also stating that he wants to know who will be ‘responsible’ for what happened to his store.       

He said he'd spent $300,000 to repair the damage done when the store was looted in May. The store is shown here after it was looted on Monday

He said he’d spent $300,000 to repair the damage done when the store was looted in May. The store is shown here after it was looted on Monday

Mouhammad said looters were at his store for 25 minutes, breaking through the steel security door and then stealing from inside

Mouhammad said looters were at his store for 25 minutes, breaking through the steel security door and then stealing from inside 

He said that he has ‘been through a lot. A lot of drama, a lot of stress. I don’t know what I’m going to do’ and said that he is planning to sue the city of Chicago for apparently taking more than 25 minutes to respond to his call for help.  

Chicago police said Thursday that they will have 1,000 more cops on the street over the weekend to prevent a repeat of the recent looting.

‘The looters have made the point that we’re larger than you, we outnumber you, you’ve heard that in some of the crowds, we’ll be back, this kind of empty threat, we are committed to deploying our resources as large as we have to be, not only to protect our downtown but also our neighborhood retail corridor,’ Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said, according to WGN 9.  

Among the tactics being used will be to arrest and prosecute anyone caught looting. 

‘We must show that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and not be let out of jail without any consequence. We as a group, not just police, prosecutors both state and federal are committed to making that happen,’ Brown said. 

Hundreds of looters caused chaos Sunday night into Monday following a police-involved shooting in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. 

Police said a man matching the description of a suspect ran from officers who were trying to interview him at the time. Officers claimed that the man opened fire at them while he ran, so they shot at him in return, leaving him with injuries he is expected to survive, WGN 9 reported. 

Police said 100 people were arrested and 13 police officers were injured during the looting sprees. 

Mouhammad is questioning why the looters have taken to attacking small businesses in response to incidents like this.  

He said to Fox News that he wanted to know ‘what my business has to do with it. If you have something against the officers or whatever, then why you come to break in our businesses, why you destroy us for?’

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk