Two people, believed to be homeless, are being held on charges of assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly attacking the proprietors of Dollar Thrift, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
Melissa and Thomas Jones have owned the thrift store off Auburn Boulevard for seven years, and they believe things have recently gotten out of hand. They asked a couple to move from sleeping in front of their door around 10:00 a.m. on Monday so they could open for clients.
“Unfortunately, the aggressiveness has been verbal abuse up to this point.” “Today was like a pub fight,” Thomas Jones remarked.
The pair detailed the point at which things became violent.
“As soon as we said, ‘You got to go,’ she hit me two times this thing attached to a string,” Thomas told me. “My wife then went to stop her.” “A full blow to the head cracked her.”
Sergeant Amar Gandhi, a sheriff’s office spokesperson, said Sherinda Owens and Damariay Smith are charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
“It could have gone much worse,” Ghandi remarked. “She’s not armed. All she wants to do is get the shop open so customers may come in.”
According to Thomas Jones, problems with homeless people lingering around his shop have gotten worse in recent years. Dollar Thrift, as the name suggests, sells all clothing for $1.00.
“We can’t just pick up and go.” We are not Rite Aid. We can’t just claim, ‘We’ve got money in the bank.’ This is money taken from our pockets. “We don’t always make a profit,” Thomas admitted.
They would like to see more programmes in place to assist locally owned businesses that are the victims of vandalism or violent crime.
“Why is it imposed on small businesses?” When will some of our local politicians stand up for us?” Thomas stated. “We have to fight that as a community, and the only way we can do that is if the politicians are out here going, ‘The mom-and-pop shop is the backbone of America.'”
Last year, vandals also targeted them, writing foul language in faeces on their back windows. Since law enforcement can only step in once a situation devolves into violence, they believe their options are limited.
“This is the tip of an iceberg of a big problem of what’s going on right now,” Gandhi stated. “It’s these folks getting impacted and have to deal with this day in and day out.”
The Jones family claims that if the crime becomes severe enough to drive them out of business, it will negatively affect not only their seven-member family but also their clients’ quality of life.
“What about the single mum with two kids who depend on getting quality clothes from this store?” Said Jones. “The community depends on us, needs us.”
Although Melissa and Thomas Jones only had minor injuries, they are afraid that things could go much worse the next time.
