A GoFundMe campaign launched by the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council has raised nearly $40,000 for a jewelry store that lost up to 90% of its inventory.
Stewart Chen, president of Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council, wrote on the GoFundMe page that on April 10, Phuong Jewelry was violently robbed.
“In a brazen midday attack, eight strong armed robbers and two getaway drivers broke their way into the family owned jewelry store in Oakland Chinatown. They ransacked and took everything that the family has worked for in the last 41 years.”
Diane Trinh, the 69-year old owner, said the crime was especially traumatizing as her father was shot and killed in a robbery at the same store in the 1990s.
Trinh had thought she was helping a customer but that man was not what he seemed. He let robbers inside who smashed display cases, grabbing what they could, until Trinh’s 76-year-old husband came out of a backroom with a shotgun and the robbers ran out the door.
“We’ve been robbed a few times before but not at this level of brazen magnitude,” Trinh’s son, Tony Trinh, told ABC-7 in San Francisco.
Chen wrote, “Everything was cleared out within seconds. Although they are thankful that no one was hurt, to say this is truly devastating is beyond comprehendible. Unfortunately, the family lacked insurance to cushion the blow of their inventory losses and to cover the damages done.”