Casting a Wide Web for Robbers

In early December, he gave in and installed metal bars over the windows. They didn't have the effect he expected.

On New Year's Eve, his security camera captured a burglar kicking in the plate-glass front door, lifting the bars behind the glass by a few inches and urging a boy to climb inside.

"It was just like a mother giving birth," Mahteme said.

The child then unlocked a side door, and the camera videotaped the pair grabbing all the merchandise they could carry; no cash was on the premises.

When Mahteme didn't file insurance claims for fear of losing his policy, neighbors raised $800 to help him replace the broken glass.

"It was amazing, these people," Mahteme said. "They didn't have to do it."

Neighbors speak of a recent surge in break-ins and armed robberies throughout the neighborhood, although police statistics indicate that the rate of those crimes has declined from each of the previous two years.

In addition, resident Michelle Sforza said, juveniles have assaulted passersby, and construction sites have been vandalized.

"You can be assaulted for just being on the street," she said. "It's not hard to imagine someone getting really, really hurt."

At Mahteme's market, new shatter-resistant glass shows pockmarks and spider-web cracks from would-be burglars and vandals. And each week, Mahteme sees youths who he suspects have robbed him, walking into his store.

But every morning, Mahteme keeps opening the doors of his elegantly restored market.

"I can't give up. I can't pack up and go," he said as he stood outside the store just before closing one recent night.

"These people want me to stay."