Tienda Raquel robbery
Brent Finnegan -- September 28th, 2006
In case you can’t tell by now, immigration in Harrisonburg is an issue I consider to be extremely important. I’m no statistician, but considering school officials expect the ESL kids to account for 50 percent of the school’s population in four years, it at least implies that immigrants (or children of immigrants) will account for about 50 percent of Harrisonburg’s population within 20 years (statisticians, feel free to correct me on this).
It’s no secret that immigrants come to the US looking for economic opportunities that do not exist in their home countries. In some cases (such as in El Salvador) these immigrants are refugees from natural disasters and violent civil wars and gang wars.
Today the DNR ran this story. Two days after Indalecio Robles, a Salvadoran immigrant, opened a convenience store called Tienda Raquel on Hawkins Street in Harrisonburg, he was robbed at gunpoint (presumably by a non-immigrant). He told the DNR that in El Salvador, he used to have to pay guys to guard his store with shotguns.* “I’ve always wanted to own my own store in the United States,” he said. “I saw that opportunity in Harrisonburg.”
*Note to the now-notorious H’burg thieves: you may not want to rob that store again. I’m pretty sure he’s prepared for you now.
-finnegan
When I was in El Salvador ten years ago, the guy who delivered us pizza was strapped. I remember a couple of gang riots happened outside of our hotel. San Salvador is f’cking scary, man.
It would seem that Harrisonburg now has a serial cashier robber (or two of them). HPD’s Kurt Boshart won’t say so, but it sounds to me like it’s kind of obvious. That’s four holdups in three months.
DNR story here.