When Elijah Salazar, owner of Peaberry Coffee in the Kiestwood neighborhood of Oak Cliff, arrived at work Sunday morning, he was met with a sidewalk covered in shattered glass.
Overnight, the front door of his coffee shop had been broken during a burglary. When Salazar watched the shop’s security footage, he was stunned by “how quickly” his business had been victimized.
“This guy seemed professional, honestly. He had gloves on, he was in and out in probably less than two minutes,” Salazar told the Observer. “We can see his face on the camera, but otherwise there's no other evidence to mess with. We just had to start cleaning up right away to make sure we can open, and I started calling people at 8:00 a.m. hoping to get somebody out to replace our window.”
The several hundred dollars in damages to the neighborhood coffee shop’s glass storefront was the biggest loss from the burglary; the perpetrator walked away empty-handed thanks to Peaberry’s recent decision to stop carrying cash that was inspired by a break-in in late September, Salazar said. After that incident, store employees found the shop's cash register empty, smashed open and abandoned behind a neighborhood restaurant.
What concerns the small-business owner most is how closely together the two burglaries occurred.
Peaberry opened in January 2019, and until this September he had been burglarized only twice in more than 5 years. Now, Salazar feels like he is “watching over his shoulder” for the next person who has it out for his business.
Crime data released by the Dallas Police Department earlier this week shows that Salazar isn’t alone. Dallas police data shows that nearly 3,400 businesses had reported break-ins this year as of Nov. 30. According to the latest numbers in Dallas’ violent crime reduction plan, business robberies — which occur through force or the threat of force, generally when people are present — are the only type of violent crime that has increased year over year.
Data through the end of November shows that total violent crime is down citywide by nearly 9% — a 27% decrease in murders compared to last year is a major contributor to this number — but business robberies have increased by almost 8%. As of Nov. 30, 349 businesses have reported robberies this year, Dallas police data shows.
Between the thousands of reported crimes against businesses this year, thousands of business owners across the city have been left paying for broken windows, destroyed cash registers and stolen receipts.
Although frustrating for business owners, the November data is an improvement over summer reports that showed business robberies up 15% from the year before. The summer data was so worrisome that the Dallas Police Department hosted a symposium for business owners that suggested ways to prevent and report incidents of burglary or robbery.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot spoke at the event, where he noted that officers are often not able to prioritize business break-ins investigations over more pressing crimes.
“Everyone in this room knows getting to murder cases, sexual assault cases and violent crime cases are the priority cases for DPD,” Creuzot said. “But we also know DPD doesn’t have the officers they need or want.”
Salazar has done what officials say to do: installed security cameras, stopped accepting cash payments — a decision that he says has significantly impacted his business — and filed police reports each time his store has been burglarized.
He added that last weekend, police officers did not respond to Peaberry until 25 hours after the break-in call. By the time they arrived, the store had experienced a full day of customer traffic, and there was very little to be done in terms of evidence collecting, he said.
“I think people don't realize there's a lot of emotional damage that this kind of causes,” Salazar said. “This is exhausting. We have to come up with solutions on the fly like, okay, well, we don't have a door. We don't have a cash register. We can't do business as easily. It's just always kind of another hurdle to jump.”
