A Cleveland bakery store owner said Monday that after having her business gutted by rioters she is now being threatened for helping the police investigate the crime.
“The store’s gotten some threats. When it gets rebuilt it’s going to get hit again. That my cooperation is unfair. That I shouldn’t be — I shouldn’t be cooperating with the FBI. That, you know … it’s … against the cause,” Kelly Kandah, proprietor of Colossal Cupakes, told “Fox & Friends.”
“I’m actually absolutely for the cause. But it’s upsetting people that I would … involve the police over something such as property.” (RELATED: Trump Says He Did Not Call For Shooting Looters, Just That ‘Looting Leads To Shooting’)
Kandah told Fox that her store was targeted by rioters on the evening of May 30 when protesters gathered across the United States to express their anger over the death of George Floyd after his arrest by Minneapolis Police.
Despite a promise from President Donald Trump to end the violence by using the United States military if necessary, he has not done so; Defense Secretary Mark Esper has also indicated his disapproval of the plan.
She said she believed her life was threatened when rioters gutted her store and she had to lock herself in the bathroom. She called the Cleveland police, who came to her rescue. “They did save my life. Absolutely,” Kandah told the media outlet.
The store owner said that was not the end of her troubles. “I was showing some of the damage and I was leaving, a friend and myself, and someone walking by approached us and said, ‘When the store rebuilds, when you rebuild this, I’m going to come back and destroy it again and you.’ He sort of just kept walking and was gone.”
Graffiti is seen on a burned out 7Eleven after riots and looting overnight on June 2, 2020 in St Louis, Missouri. Four police officers were reportedly shot in St. Louis overnight during violent clashes with protesters leading to looting and damage to local businesses. (Photo by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)
Kandah says is afraid to reopen the store, given the threats. (RELATED: Owner Of Gutted Minneapolis Shopping Mall Tells Governor And Mayor: ‘People Will Uprise Over This’)
She said there is a bitter irony in critics who say she should not have called the police and should have endured the lawlessness as evidence of her support for black lives.
“It’s just really sad. Unfortunately my store is not open right now and I’m so involved with the community and I’m so involved with our inner-city schools and I’m so for the cause that I do a lot of community service. Right now, I can’t. I don’t have anything being brought in to be able to donate as much as I usually do.”