Compton bakery owner stunned after looters ransack restaurant: ‘Heartbreaking’
Ruben’s Bakery and Mexican Food owner Ruben Ramirez, Jr., joins ‘America Reports’ to discuss the large mob of people crashing a car through his business and looting it.
The son of Mexican immigrants who operates a popular Latino bakery in Compton, Calif., spoke out to Fox News on Friday after a mob of looters from an illegal "street takeover" drove a car through the front door and ransacked the business.
Ruben Ramirez Jr. told "America Reports" that the material losses have accumulated so far to $70,000, and that there is even more unimaginable damage to the bakery and to the realities of his family left to pick up the pieces.
A Los Angeles County sheriff's officer told the New York Post that meat scales, meat, groceries and lottery tickets were among the goods looted in the early Tuesday criminal blitz at Ruben's Bakery & Mexican Food.
A white Kia could be seen on CCTV repeatedly ramming the front door until it gave way, and let about 100 looters inside to run wild.
LA COUNTY RESIDENTS DEMAND ACTION AFTER CAR SMASHES STORE TO MAKE WAY FOR MOB
A mob used a car to smash open a bakery and loot its goods in Compton, Calif. (Fox 11 screenshot)
"This has never happened to us before. We've seen ‘street takeovers’ in the area, but it's never anything like this," Ramirez said.
He added that of the dozens of looters, he and his family could not identify a single vandal from the surveillance tapes, but expressed hope Compton and Los Angeles law enforcement will gain better leads.
While Ramirez said he hopes to see arrests made, he told "America Reports" that the more important goal is to see the bakery and eatery reopen to its former glory.
"I just want my business back. I want to be able to serve the community how we've been doing it for all these years and make everybody happy with our food," he said.
Another loss caused by the looting, Ramirez said, was that his bakery will not be able to produce substantive quantities of a popular ethnic bread in time for Saturday, which marks Epiphany – or the visit by the Three Kings to a newborn baby Jesus.
"It's been -- it's going to be a little devastating. We don't know the effects of how long it's going to take us to recover completely," said Ramirez.
He added that better community policies are needed to prevent such rampant looting and criminal behavior, saying it is hardworking people who suffer most.
"I had a neighbor in the street takeovers around here who lost his work truck, so now he can't work," he said. "He lost his livelihood because of that. So, you know, I hate to say it, but nobody gets punished for anything."
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