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Cleveland Store Owners Attacked After Customer’s Card is Declined

Photo by Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons

A declined $11.85 purchase led to an Ohio beauty supply store vandalized with the owners injured and the attacker on the loose, News Channel 5 reports.

Footage recorded by one of the store owners shows the attacker suggesting that she should still leave with her items despite her card not working.

“May I please have my items, please? I will leave and get out of your hair. You will never see me in your store again,” the attacker says in the video. “All I’m trying to do is get my items, that’s it. I’m not being belligerent,”

One of the store owners repeatedly says that she cannot walk away without paying. The attacker then tells the two owners to call the police as she suddenly lunges forward behind the counter, punching and dragging them.



David Jo, the son of the two store owners, feels disheartened by the incident.

“I don’t think anybody expects their parents to get brutally beaten like that and them having to watch a video and not being able to do anything about it,” Jo told Fox 8. “It’s pretty tough, I felt very helpless.”

The attack happened on a Friday evening, but Jo did not hear about the incident until his brother sent him a video clip Monday morning. He felt shocked after seeing his parents’ injuries.

“I just saw my mom today since it happened and she’s all bruised up, her hair’s been pulled out, she has bruises all over her body… My dad’s mouth was all bloodied up,” Jo told Fox 8.

The Jo family lived in the Cleveland area for almost three decades after emigrating from South Korea. They owned and operated the beauty supply store for five years. While they dealt with irate customers in the past, they have never dealt with a situation like this.

News Channel 5 states that Jo’s parents are proud people. Three days after the attack, the two store owners went back to work to clean up the store and go through a normal workday. Jo states that he does not feel comfortable with his parents going back to work with the attacker still walking the streets.

“All they want to do is work hard and make it here as any immigrants do when they come in and try to make a better life for themselves and their children,” Jo told News Channel 5.

Jo demands justice and hopes that the public assists in finding the attacker.

“I need to find this person and make sure she is held accountable for the damage she has caused,” Jo told News Channel 5.

According to Fox 8, Cleveland police would charge the attacker for for felonious assault and vandalism. Hate crime charges are not definite yet.

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