An Ohio woman whose small business was looted and ransacked during a protest over police brutality has been receiving complaints for her cooperating with authorities to find those responsible for looting and destroying her store last month, she told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
Colossal Cupcakes owner Kelly Kandah was one of the hundreds of business owners whose store was destroyed during riots in late May following the police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Kandah told media following the incident she was terrified when the rioters broke into her store while she and four other employees were present in the shop at the time of the looting.
“They started throwing bricks and tools at me and one of the people leaped towards me so I ran into the back and locked myself with the staff into the bathroom,” Kandah told Cleveland19.
“There’s smoke damage, there’s wall damage, everything that’s glass in here is gone doors, windows, & fixtures,” she added. “That whole time we were locked in there … I just listened to everything getting shattered and crushed.”
During the interview, she said the complaints she is receiving include notes and messages of people threatening to loot, ransack, and burn down her store once she will have rebuilt and reopened.
Some people also complained to her for cooperating with the FBI and law enforcement agencies, who are still looking for answers about the riots, how they began, who was involved, and whether the riots were professionally organized by outside organizations or some criminal enterprise.
The complaints Kandah receives includes people telling her what she is doing is “against the cause,” but she told “Fox & Friends” these claims are so untrue.
“I’m actually absolutely for the cause, but it’s upsetting people that I would involve the police over something such as property,” she said.
Earlier this month she said she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to open back again and that she is scared to reopen following the threats.
“I was showing some of the damage and I was leaving, a friend and myself, and someone walking by approached us and said, ‘When the store rebuilds, when you rebuild this, I’m going to come back and destroy it again and you,'” the passing by unidentified individual told Kandah the week after her store was looted and destroyed.
Kandah told “Fox & Friends” hosts during a separate interview earlier this month she has owned the cupcake store for nearly a decade and it was built by her family and her insurance will not cover everything.
She said with the latest blow to my store, apart from the pandemic crisis, she can open by the end of the summer. But hasn’t set a specific time yet.
“Unfortunately my store is not open right now and I’m so involved with the community and I’m so involved with our inner-city schools and I’m so for the cause that I do a lot of community service,” she said.
Numerous business owners have been targeted by looters and rioters who took advantage of the anti-racism and anti-police brutality demonstrations that erupted nationwide as peaceful protests expressing grief and anger over the police custody death of Floyd have in many cases been marred by looting, violence, and arson.
