The Magic Clean Robbery Story

A true story about the Miami Police in action

1989

Written 5/06/2015 and Re-written 10/2016 * 1,727 Words

#107 By Howard Yasgar

It was on a summer afternoon in 1989.

I was sitting in my office at API, (Automotive Parts Industries) when there was a phone call. My secretary said it was my friend Adrian calling for me.

Adrian was the owner of a gas station located on the corner of NW 36 Ave and 46th Street in Miami, and my office was only a few hundred yards down the street from his gas station.

Adrian’s gas station was also right across the street from another of our buildings that my company owned, we called it the Magic Clean building.

The building got its name from when it was once used for cleaning carpets.

The Magic Clean building was a 4000 square foot building with an additional 4000 square foot outdoors yard.

The yard on the Magic Clean building was enclosed in back and on its left side by the walls of other buildings.

The front of the Magic Clean building yard had a six-foot concrete wall topped off with another 2 feet of wrought iron and that was topped off with razor sharp concertina wire.

We were using the Magic Clean building and its outdoor yard to store used automotive parts.

When Adrian called on the phone, he spoke to my partner Don, and he said, “You guys better get over here right away, two guys are breaking into your storage yard and they are right across the street from me. He then said, “I’m watching them as I talk to you”.

As I was sitting at a desk next to my partner Don, I heard the entire conversation.

As soon as my partner Don received that call from Adrian, he immediately told Adrian to please call the police.

As soon as he hung up the phone, my partner started looking for his own police emergency phone number book, he wanted to call police also.

While my partner Don was phoning the police, I went right out into our shop area,

where I rounded up a group of around eight employees, one of which was my son Jack.

We all quickly as a group walked fast to Adrian’s gas station.

Our intention was to see from the gas station exactly what Adrian said was going on.

My partner Don quickly joined us, and he said that he had just reached the police department and had given them the address of where the break-in was taking place.

So now, all of us had left our main building, and we were all jogging up the street to Adrian’s gas station.

Once there, we were planning on waiting for the Police to come and confront the guys breaking into our building.

Once our group gathered in Adrian’s gas station, we looked across the street and clearly saw a faded maroon four door 1972 Chevrolet sedan parked in front of the gate of the Magic Clean building.

The car was partially on the building’s lawn, but it was backed up to the driveway leading to the gate of the Magic Clean yard.

All the car windows were open and so was the car’s trunk lid.

We watched as a colored fellow who was in the cars driver’s seat also spotted us looking at him.

We saw the driver looking at us, but we still didn’t make a move to cross the street.

My partner Don again went into Adrian’s office and used Adrian’s phone to call the Police again.

Adrian told us he thought there were just two guys involved.

one of them had already climbed over the gate with the concertina wire and he was hiding inside the yard.

Naturally we were all hoping that the Police would soon arrive to handle the situation for us.

So, as nervous as we were, we all waited there in the gas station for what we thought was an eternity.

After about fifteen minutes and no Police showing up, we all walked across the street.

I was thinking of how to try keeping the burglars occupied while waiting until the police came.

As soon as we crossed the street, several of our employees went to stand beside and in front of the old Chevrolet.

We could hear its engine was still running and we saw the driver was sitting there sweating.

Our employees told us later that they thought that the driver wouldn’t dare drive off with all of them standing there.

I walked over to the wire gate and I peered into the yard.

It was difficult to see if anyone was hiding in the yard because of all the wooden crates, and metal barrels stored there.

After a while I saw a small, wiry-looking, colored fellow trying to hide behind a fifty-five-gallon barrel.

I also saw that he had already piled up quite a few used starters right near the gate, obviously ready to steal them by throwing them over the fence to his accomplice.

Not knowing exactly what to do, and not knowing when the Police might arrive, I clutched the gate with both hands and tried yelling to the fellow to come out.

He didn’t move, so I kept on yelling at him to come out for several minutes.

That was when my son came over to me, and tapped me on the shoulder and he handed me his 357-magnum pistol.

So now, here I was, waving this giant pistol in the air.

I didn’t like having the pistol, as I knew I never would have ever pulled the trigger.

but the guy in the yard must have seen the size of the gun, and he decided it was better to climb over the gate and come out of the yard.

As we all stood there staring at him in amazement, the wiry black guy gingerly climbed over the razor-sharp concertina wire on the gate without so much as even scratching himself.

The moment he was over the fence, several of my employees grabbed his arms and tried to wrestle him down to the ground.

I watched as they struggled with him, he was strong, and even with six guys hanging on him they still couldn’t get him down to the ground.

As he dragged my guys out into the middle of NW 46 street, I also put my hand on his shoulder trying to push him down.

I watched in amazement, as even as six of my guys were hanging on to this guy, he still dragged them all out into the center of the street.

Now all the traffic was driving bye and as hard as my men tried, they couldn’t get him down.

People in the cars were now slowing down yelling at us.

Then I saw the wiry guy wiggle free, and in an instant he nosedived into the open rear window of the car, and the car took off at full speed.

I heard someone yelling for me to shoot the car’s tires out.

So now here we were about ten of us standing in the middle of the street, and with me standing there holding a giant 357 magnum pistol.

I watched Adrian’s gas station and mechanics were all standing across the street cheering us on.

Some cars that were driving on 46th Street had now stopped, thinking there was a murder or something going on.

Still as all this was transpiring, no Police ever showed up.

We all decided to start walking back to our office.

Adrian said to me that he had called the Police Station once again and he couldn’t understand why they hadn’t shown up.

So besides from Adrian, and my partner, the Police had been called four times.

Now, once I was back in my office I sat down in the air conditioning. I was sweating, and my hands were still shaking over what had transpired.

I sat there in my office for about half an hour until I heard a loud commotion going on in front of our building.

I walked outside, only to see my son in a heated conversation with an irate, red faced police officer.

The two of them were arguing, when a second patrol car pulled up with two more l police officers in it.

My son was asking the first officer why they hadn’t responded to the break-in, and why they had not responded to our four phone calls.

To this day I remember that irate, cop who was obviously out of control.

He was so visibly agitated, his face was red, and he was yelling at my son, and he said, “Do you know how far I had to drive to get here?”

When he said that, I said to him, hey officer, that’s your job, isn’t it?

Your job is to respond to these kinds of calls.

We called you guys four times, and no one came, now both the crooks have gone.

Well, the cop was just livid and it appeared to me that he was going to pull his gun and arrest all of us.

However, just as he was reaching for his gun, the other two Policemen that had just arrived, grabbed his arm and they physically held him back.

They said, “What’s going on here?” It appears that they had already been to see Adrian on the corner and had gotten an ear full from him.

I again told them all about the guys that had broken into our property and how they had gotten away.

That’s when the two cops said they were not here because of the robbery, or our four telephone calls.

They said that they came because someone had called the police saying that some white guy with a gun was beating up a black guy in the middle of NW 46th street.

When he said that, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

After all the police left, I went back into my office, and I called the local Police Station.

I asked them if they had received our four phone calls regarding the break-in. “They said no”, they had no record of receiving any calls from us regarding it.

So here I was, now still shaking from the altercation with an out-of-control police officer.

I asked who I could speak to at the station to file a report on an out-of-control police officer.

The officer I was speaking with said that to make out a complaint report against a police officer I would have to come in and speak to the Major in charge.

I asked if I could speak to the Major now, and they said he wasn’t in.

I calmly asked who can I speak to?

You can try next week he said.

I got the picture.