A business owner in Oakland is describing living and working in fear, saying its reminiscent of war times from his native country.
He, and others, attended a meeting in Little Saigon to demand action.
Video recorded just before noon on Thursday shows a man being stalked and then robbed as he is inside his SUV.
The suspects are seen speeding off in what appears to be a green sedan.
Just the day before at 6 a.m., a woman was attacked and robbed by two suspects in a waiting car, and then dragged.
“She didn’t deserve this,” said Bruce Vuong. “Like she’s a dog or something, I mean.”
Both incidents happened in Oakland’s Little Saigon neighborhood and Vuong says it’s those types of violent crimes that are happening every single day.
He said he came to the United States from Vietnam, running this auto body shop near International for more than 35 years.
These days you can find him carrying a taser because he says he and other business owners fear that they’ll be the next victim.
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“I seen crime that I thought when I left Vietnam I wouldn’t see anymore,” he said. “But now, we get the same thing here.”
Vuong said he was one of 30 or so shop owners and community members that went to a closed-door meeting the media was not invited to.
He said there, Councilmember Nikki Fortunado-Bas, and a captain with the Oakland Police Department, all heard how nearly everyone there had been a target of thieves or violent crime.
Earlier in the day, Mayor Sheng Thao didn’t specifically talk about crime in Little Saigon, but told NBC Bay Area addressing it has been her top priority.
“It is something I take serious and this is why I actually called the governor for support,” she said.
The CHP announced it would deploy officers in Oakland to help fight crime at the beginning of August.
But Vuong says he hasn’t seen much improvement. He says they need more enforcement and also prosecution.
If not, he said he’ll do what so many other small businesses sick of crime have done.
“It get to the point right now, I’m ready to leave,” he said. “We should have that opportunity to live in freedom but right now, we just like running scared.”
