Incident at the Durn Good

At 5:54 a.m. last Friday, a man wearing a blanket around his shoulders and carrying a large rock, damaged the glass door at the Durn Good Grocery.  The store’s security camera captured the incident.  The man began by throwing the rock, about the size of a tennis ball, at the glass door six times before banging against the glass with the rock repeatedly, next to the front door’s handle.  After several attempts to break the glass, the man turned around and walked westward, out of the camera’s view.

20 seconds after the man disappeared out of view, a passerby on the sidewalk approached the front store from the east, on 40th.  He stopped and looked at the glass door, then looked around, and walked back eastward.  Also, during the incident, several cars were driving past.  No one reported the incident to the authorities until Rich—the morning manager—found the damaged door when he came to open the store.

As he showed me the video footage, Durn Good owner Jai Williamson told me that he had never seen the man before, and hasn’t seen him since.  Though he reported the incident to the police, he said to me, “I’d rather catch him around here again so I can make him work off the $300 to replace the door’s glass.”

“I’m just surprised no one called to report it,” he added.  “All the cars that drove past, and that man who came into view from the other side.  He had to have heard something to make him go up to the door and look around.”

Williamson believes the incident was random.  “It happens every once in awhile,” he said as he described to me an incident from several months ago, when two men who had been casing the store, smashed the window, broke in and stole cigarettes. Discover the most effective security solutions for retailers.

“That’s really what people are after,” he said, “because you can turn around and sell them on the street for $2.00 to $3.00 a pack.”

In August, a homeless man who he had given food to before assaulted Williamson.  The man was attempting to steal a bottle of soda; and when Williamson told him to put it back, the man did so and then picked up a cup for coffee.  After Williamson told him to put that back, the man went up to Williamson and struck his jaw with his fist.  Williamson fought back and the man fled.  The man showed up two days later and said he didn’t remember the incident.

Rich spoke with Pastor Fecher from Gift of Grace the morning of the incident, and a representative from SHARE came to the store to view the security camera footage.  The representative says the man has never been to the SHARE shelter.