"How many more bodegueros will have to die before the mayor and the NYPD take action?"
The question, asked by José Fernández, president of the 7,000-member Bodega Association of New York, begs for an immediate answer.
After all, for many months bodegueros have been easy targets for thieves and murderers who seem to act with insulting impunity.
"The crime wave against bodegas is back after a period of relative tranquility," Fernández said. "And this time it is happening in places where we never before had this kind of problem, like Queens."
It is ironic that it is bodegueros, usually well-liked and supportive of the community, that are the ones being so viciously victimized. Of course, the fact that the criminals have been getting away with murder does not help.
According to Fernández, 17 bodegas in Queens have been robbed in a 30-day period. Tragically, last month, storeowner Bolívar Cruz was assassinated by robbers who shot him in the head. The crime that took the life of the 56-year-old Dominican immigrant and father of eight occurred on June 11 at his store, the Kennedy Mini-Market in South Ozone Park.
"He was a good man, my son," Ofelia Espinal, Cruz's 75-year-old mother, told the Daily News. "He worked too hard."
"No one has been caught, and there are no suspects in Bolívar's killing," an exasperated Fernández said. "Our stores are under siege. Bodegueros are living in terror because they feel that they are not getting adequate police protection. Crime against bodegas does not seem to be a police priority."
And this, Fernández insists, must change.
"We are only asking two things: adequate police protection, and for authorities to put an end to the impunity with which these criminals operate," he said.
New York cops are still investigating Cruz's murder.
Fernández declares himself puzzled by Mayor Bloomberg's inaction on Operation Safe Store. This was a program to place security cameras and 911 warning systems in bodegas located in high crime areas.
It was launched with much fanfare by Mayor Bloomberg in 2004, at a time when, like today, the number of bodega-related murders and robberies had increased alarmingly.
But security cameras were only installed in 10 stores in a pilot program that was proclaimed a success. Yet according to City Hall, Operation Safe Store has been extended to a total of only 33 bodegas of the more than 10,000 that exist in New York.
According to Fernández, after four years, the city has not lived up to its commitments. The Safe Store program is still paralyzed, he said, as if the mayor had forgotten about it.
"But if he thinks that solving these crimes is not a priority, he has the wrong agenda," Fernández said of the mayor. "If small business owners are not safe, New York cannot be called a safe city by any stretch of the imagination."
Fernández and the Asociación de Bodegueros have asked Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly for an urgent meeting.
"They haven't called us back," a clearly worried Fernández said.
The mayor's press office had this to say in a written statement:
"The mayor is concerned about crimes against bodega owners, and considerable police resources are devoted to investigating crimes against bodega owners and employees, including a pattern of robberies that has been identified in Queens."
Well, that's good news. But the beleaguered New York bodegueros need the criminals caught and their stores protected. Not one more of them should die.
