Yet another robber barged into Nim’s downtown jewelry shop. He ended up messing with the wrong shop owner.
The attempted robbery took place Monday afternoon at Nim’s shop on Chapel Street less than a block from the Green.
It also occurred less than a day before another possible armed robbery attempt in the Dixwell neighborhood ended with a clerk shot to death.
Fortunately for the owner of Nim’s, Monday’s encounter didn’t end that way.
The owner — a South Korean immigrant who asked that his name be withheld — was still visibly shaken the next afternoon as he replayed a store surveillance video of the encounter. (Click on the play arrow to the above video to watch highlights.) He was bruised, too.
Nim’s has been a retail constant for decades on an otherwise transient block of stores. The current owner said his aunt opened it in 1976. He took it over in 2001.
Running the shop has meant contending with robbers. In 2012 alone the store got hit three times, the owner said.
Then came Monday’s attempt.
A hooded man carrying a backpack entered the store at 4:26 p.m. A female clerk, who’s in the first trimester of a pregnancy, was working the counter.
The man brandished what looked like a gun.
The owner was a few steps away on the internet in a back room. He heard the clerk scream. He grabbed some bills — maybe $50 or $100 in all — and rushed out front.
The robber pointed his weapon at the owner. He said he wanted money. The owner slapped the bill on the counter near the robber as the female clerk ran to the back room, dialed 911, and hid. The police dispatcher could heard yelling in the background before the line went dead.
“We have a rule” for clerks, the owner said. “Somebody is coming in [armed], you run away.”
The robber continued brandishing the weapon as he followed the owner around the area behind the counter. The owner, crouching, tried to get away. At 4:28 p.m. he managed to press an alarm button, twice, to alert the police.
The robber demanded more money. The owner opened the cash register and dumped its contents into the robber’s backpack.
The owner grabbed a baton that he had on hand and struck the robber. The robber grabbed the baton from him. The two started wrestling. The robber kept the apparent gun in one hand, the baton in the other. He beat the owner on the head. The two tumbled to the ground, crashing a display case.
“He’s so strong. He’s bigger than me,” the owner later recalled. “I’m scared.”
The owner couldn’t dislodge the gun out of the robber’s hand. He did manage to get on top of the robber for a while and land some punches.
The interlocked pair rolled into the back room, crashing more glass, a Crystal Rock water cooler, a Canon copier. The robber bit the owner’s left thumb.
At 4:36 p.m., according to the video, three officers came through the front door. Guns drawn, they checked around, then headed to the commotion in the back room.
They pulled the combatants apart. At first both were arrested, but the police quickly removed the cuffs from the owner when they realized he was the victim, who was bleeding. Officer Scott Durkin was the lead officer on the arrest.
Later on at the police station the attacker, who’s 19, allegedly confessed to the crime. He was charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree larceny, illegal use of a facsimile firearm, second-degree assault, and second-degree assault with a weapon. The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun.
The alleged robber remains behind bars on a $350,000 bond. His next court date is Jan. 30.
Meanwhile, in addition to his damaged property, the storeowner suffered head wounds and a chipped glasses lens. He went to the hospital for care, then was released. Tuesday afternoon his eye was still hurting him. His thumb had a band-aid. He was still worried, he said — about how he’ll pay for the medical bills, the broken display case and copier and water cooler. Most of all, he was still frightened by the encounter.
The pregnant clerk decided not to come back to the job, the man said. A new clerk, a University of New Haven student who hails from China, was working the counter Tuesday. She was all smiles.
Paul Bass Photo