Dramatic video, shared with Global News, of a brazen daylight robbery at Universal store in Mississauga, Ont.’s Westwood Square shows three masked suspects rushing in, with one allegedly showing a gun to an employee behind the counter.
“The one jump over on the counter, broke the windows, took the jewelry…. One guy showed the gun to my employee. She was very terrified. She was very scared and she was shouting,” store owner Kaleem Muhammad said.
He said it happened Monday around 1 p.m. just moments after he left the store to go to the bank, leaving the employee on her own inside.
“They took the money, they took the jewelry and they broke the glass and damaged some stuff. And then they left and they ran away,” he said.
The employee managed to run out of the shop and was unharmed.
Another person who was inside the mall at the time, however, was injured.
“The guy was coming out from the washroom. What they did, they hit on his face. He was bleeding. Terrible. And he had nothing to do with them. And they just hit him,” Muhammad said.
Peel paramedics confirmed to Global News they treated a man for minor injuries at the scene.
Muhammad said the suspects made off with around $15,000 worth of foreign currency and jewelry.
Mostly, he’s concerned about the safety of his store, pointing out he specifically chose its location due to its proximity to a police station.
“I got this place because I was thinking that is a more secured place in the mall and we could do the business freely here. And we are more safer because right beside us is a police station,” he said. “We never expected this could happen in such a safe place.”
Last Friday, just before 5 p.m., four masked men were caught on surveillance camera bursting into a Port Credit store called Pure10.
And two hours later, four masked suspects robbed a cellphone store at Square One Mall.
Detectives with Peel Regional Police are investigating whether the same men are responsible for both of those incidents.
Muhammad said he heard about those robberies and worried his store might be next.
“We had a feeling that something will happen here and it happened yesterday,” he said.