Another Asian business owner targeted in robbery
Three armed, masked men terrorized and robbed an Asian American business owner and his family in their home late Wednesday night in yet another home invasion targeting people of Asian descent.
This time, the business owner was a dentist, with offices in Philadelphia and Coatesville.
The Daily News last month wrote about this alarming trend in which armed thugs have followed Asian business owners to their homes in the belief that the victims stash cash at home.
In this case, dentist Jim Cheng doesn’t know if he was followed to his Main Line home on Brooklea Road in Rosemont. He said in his Olney office on Thursday that he had picked up his daughter, 20, a University of Pennsylvania undergrad who is working in graphics/design at the Summer Pennsylvanian, from the student publication’s office in University City Wednesday night before returning home about 11:30 p.m.
After they got out of the family’s Mercedes, “I enter the garage and then suddenly, three people follow me,” Cheng, 49, said. They pointed guns at him and one yelled, “Don’t scream!”
His wife, 48, a University of Pennsylvania medical school research specialist, was already inside their home.
The masked thugs forced him to lie facedown in the kitchen, Cheng said. They isolated his wife and daughter in other rooms.
They pointed guns at him, asked him where money was and threatened to kill him if he didn’t, Cheng said. Cheng said he told them where money was.
The thugs tied all of their hands behind their backs and stuffed their mouths with socks, Cheng said. After about an hour, they forced Cheng, his wife and daughter into the basement before they fled with cash and jewelry, he said. Police did not disclose how much money was taken.
Pass along!!!
Police are investigating the latest home invasion that involves an Asian-American business owner. There has been a string of similar crimes against Asian business owners in the Philadelphia suburbs in recent years. Now Radnor police are trying to get to the bottom of the latest attack.
Acting Radnor Police Lt. Andy Block said on Wednesday night a little before midnight, a family — including the father who is a dentist — returning home was confronted by three criminals with handguns.
“They rounded up the wife and the daughter and they bound them: they tied them with wire ties in the kitchen and room by room ransacked the residence looking for cash and valuables,” said Block. “They did locate the cash in the safe. One of the family members under duress was told to open the safe.”
Block said police suspect the family was targeted because they are Asian-American. He says criminals target Asian business owners who have a reputation for taking cash home at night, instead of using a bank night deposit drop.
“There’s been an uptick in this kind of crime in the region in the past several months where Asian household are targeted,” said Block. “Sometimes it’s perpetrators committing these crimes in a gang-like organization so it may come back that there’s only one of the three in ours or the five in Haverford’s that had common knowledge of both crimes.”
Block said he advises business owners to report suspicious activity, and to stagger their route to and from work as well the times they travel.
Here’s how they solved the problem in Quebec…….
http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/06/06/thieves-bear-sprayed-spanked-by-store-owner