BALTIMORE — Just after 11 p.m. Tuesday night, a man and a woman entered the House of Spirits on Fleet Street with masks concealing their faces and a plan to score some quick cash.
"They enter the store with a gun in their hand straight to my son behind the cash register and they start using the foul language, 'You f--- f--- m--- f--- f---! Lay down on the ground! Open the cash register!" said the liquor store’s owner, Muhammad Abukhdeir.
When the robbers heard employees making noise in the back of the store, they grew impatient.
"They took the whole drawer of the cash register---pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters, dollars, fives and tens and everything," added the owner.
As the robbers turned to go out the door, they made a final threat.
"They pointed the gun at my son,” said Abukhdeir. “'Don't move m----- f-----!' You know. I'm sorry. 'Or I shoot you.'"
The crime comes a little more than a year after another pair of robbers struck the same store and one of them died in an exchange of gunfire.
A Palestinian immigrant, Abukhdeir purchased the business back in 1980, and 40 years later, he and his family have become fixtures in this community.
"From there, I bought the building too, and I got married in that time. I had all my kids, six kids, from this corner."
Now, Abukhdeir is contemplating whether he will hold on to the store and remain here after three robberies in just over a year's time upsetting his American Dream.
"I work 17 hours to feed my family,” said Abukhdeir. “I don't need nothing else. I just want to feed them."
