Four robberies of Korean-American merchants in eight days -- two of which ended in death -- may have been committed by the same pair of gun-toting masked men, police said yesterday as waves of fear and anger spread through Baltimore's Korean community.
"My phones have been ringing off the hook. Some people have even been asking whether they should close down their shops," said Jai P. Ryu, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's liaison with Korean residents. "These are very frightening times."
Korean-American business leaders met last night to discuss crime in the wake of the recent spate of robberies and shootings, which left two merchants dead and another seriously wounded.
Police in the city and Baltimore County say they are investigating a possible link between the incidents. In each case the holdup men wore black ski masks and fired guns, sometimes with no provocation, said Ragina Cooper, a city police spokesman.
"They seem to be extremely violent and don't seem too concerned with getting the money," Cooper said. "Even when they get the money, they become violent anyway."
In light of the possible connection between the crimes, city police officers have been told to pay closer attention to Korean-American businesses in their patrol areas, and police are sending out letters written in Korean that will tell merchants about police services that are available to them, Cooper said. In three weeks, police said they will also offer a crime-prevention course for Korean-American merchants.
At last night's meeting, several business owners called on Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier to assign a bilingual officer -- fluent in Korean and English -- to work at police headquarters downtown.
"Some of the merchants feel this would make it easier for them to communicate with the police," said Ryu, the mayor's liaison with the Korean community. "Often, the language barrier makes it very difficult for police to gather the information they need when conducting an investigation."
The robbery and slaying Monday night of Chi Sup Kim, a 44-year-old father of three shot twice in the back at his West Baltimore grocery store, was particularly unnerving to Korean-American leaders because Kim had complied to the robbers' demands and turned over several hundred dollars. They shot him anyway in front of his wife.
Kim's 18-year-old son, Danny, a freshman at the University of Maryland College Park, said his father's murder typifies what he called a senseless "crusade of violence" against Korean-American merchants.
"My dad has never done anything in his life to harm anyone. Why does this happen?" Danny Kim said. "Korean people don't commit crimes. They are responsible for less than 1 percent of crime in this country. Yet they are always being victimized. It just isn't right."
Among the other incidents was the Jan. 21 killing of Halethorpe liquor store owner Yang Koo Yoon, 46, who was shot after a brief struggle with the robbers as they ran out the door of his store in the 4600 block of Washington Blvd.
"We haven't established any firm link" with the other crimes, "but there are some things we want to look into," said Sgt. Kevin B. Novak, a Baltimore County police spokesman.
Another merchant, Won Hee Ma, 58, was shot in the chest Thursday night in a botched robbery at the Homewood Food Market in the 700 block of E. 22nd St. She was listed in fair condition yesterday at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
And on Jan. 20, two masked men entered the New Guilford Liquors store in the 2800 block of Guilford Avenue and fired at a Korean worker in the store. The bullet missed the worker and the men fled without taking any money, police said.
Holding out hope
Some Korean-American leaders said that they are still holding out hope that the recent robbery spree isn't directed specifically at Koreans. Baltimore has an average of 35 armed robberies a day, a statistic that would seem to suggest that any city merchant runs a high risk of being robbed.
"If every robber fired a gun you'd hear a gunshot every minute in the city. Nobody is safe, especially if you have money," said Kap Yung Park, vice president of the Maryland chapter of the Korean American Grocers Organization. "There's always a possibility that you might be robbed. It's an open market for the criminals."
Park, who owns a city grocery called Pennington Market, said his wife has been robbed twice. "I just tell her to let them have the money. We can make the money back next year, but we cannot get back our lives," he said.
But many of the merchants tend to be more protective when they are struggling financially, Park said. He said he tries to stress to his fellow merchants that the money is not worth being shot, but even that advice doesn't always work, he said.
"The bottom line is, anyone who lives in the city is a hostage of the criminals," Park said. "They control life, not us."
