Shooting, Robbery at Hollywood Video

by Dennis Evanosky

Just after midnight on Wednesday, March 3, three masked thugs showed up at Hollywood Video, shot the security guard in the arm, and demanded entrance to the store. There they helped themselves to DVDs, video games, and cash. Fortunately, the store was closed and no customers were in the store; the guard was treated at Highland Hospital and released.

Anyone who reads the Oakland Tribune would be familiar with this part of the story. What the Tribune story does not reveal shows the who-cares attitude with not only Hollywood Video, but PG&E and the property owners as well.

An accessible box that controls the electricity to the entire building made the robbers' job a cakewalk. The robbers used the box to extinguish the electricity. Until the day after the robbery, all one had to do was walk up the alley on the side of the store, open the box, and switch off the electricity to the entire building. Yes, I said a day after the robbery.

You see, it took the robbery and the shooting to awaken PG&E, Hollywood Video, and the building's Hillsborough owners. PG&E came to the site and put some puny little locks on the box. All the robbers need the next time is a pair of pretty flimsy wire cutters to pull the same stunt.

My source, who wishes to remain unnamed, said that time and again the Hollywood Video corporate offices were warned about the all-too-accessible electric box. My source also agreed that PG&E's solution is tenuous at best, saying that putting a sturdy fence with some barbed wire at the alley's entrance would do more than the electric company's delicate locks.

We now need the city to strap on its backbone, do its homework, and force the owners to secure that source of electricity. When the city flexes its muscles, the property owners will act.

By the way, Crime Stoppers of Oakland is offering up to $2,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone involved in the robbery. If you have information, call Oakland police Sgt. Ed Tracey at 238-3326, or Crime Stoppers at 238-6946.