He welds, sculpts, and writes books, but tonight, for all his industry, Steven Okeke says he is bordering on defeat after being crushed by crime. Okeke says that in the past 10 months, his business on North Front Street has been burglarized 6 times. Now he says he's almost losing too much money to continue:
Steven Okeke- Businessman
"This is the 6th time they are breaking in. This morning they break in again and each time they break in they take items that are worth more than a thousand dollars and it's making the business to bleed so bad. I'm asking who see these things being sold to please help me and lets recover some of them because this morning they came in and took some big boats, the boat carving. And this special boat carving is by a man they call Balad so he says he has special boats. No other person makes boats of that design. So when people see these boats they should please help me recover it no."
"It's terribly demoralizing man. Some of the windows they are breaking through, I have closed up the windows and they are now using another entrance. Just the same tactics every time. They cut up the burglar bars they take out the louvers and the come in and pack up everything. I'm asking people to please help me somehow. There were weeks when the break in two times. They break in on Monday, I come close up everything, patch up the place report to the police and they break in two days again. It's terrible."
Okeke says he'll now have to completely seal off the last remaining window and concentrate on reinforcing the front entrance of his business.