A crowd of about 20 young people stormed a 7-Eleven at Fifth Avenue and International Boulevard around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, stole merchandise, and — after workers locked the doors — returned to smash the windows with metal bars, striking the store manager in the face. The owner says it was at least the fifth time his store has been targeted this year.

The weekend ransacking of an East Oakland convenience store drew three separate TV crews, but the detail that outlasts the broadcast footage is what franchise owner D.A. Brar told NBC Bay Area: he is locked into a long-term lease he can't break, won't bar his own windows because it would defeat the point of a convenience store, and has now absorbed roughly $25,000 in damage in a single year. The councilmember for the district says relief is coming in the form of newly trained officers — "in the coming months." For a store hit repeatedly in broad daylight, the gap between the crime and the remedy is the story.

Two workers were inside the 7-Eleven at Fifth Avenue and International Boulevard on Saturday afternoon when, according to their accounts to local outlets, a group of roughly 20 young people — appearing to be in their mid-to-late teens, some as old as 20 — flooded in and began grabbing chips and drinks. When the manager asked them to put the items back, the group turned aggressive, took merchandise, and left.

A worker locked the doors. It didn't hold. Minutes later the group came back and, using what the owner described as a crowbar or metal bar, smashed the store's windows and broke off its door handles. The manager was hit in the face by a thrown object; some of the crowd climbed through the shattered glass before fleeing — on bicycles, according to the Oakland Police Department.

"I feel a bit scared when that happened, because we don't have any security over here. We don't have any protection," worker Jay Singh told KRON4, which first reported the incident.

The store's owner, D.A. Brar, told NBC Bay Area the crew hit the store twice the same day and that Saturday marked the fifth time in 2026 his business has been targeted by robbers and vandals — damage he estimates at about $25,000 for the year. Employees speaking to KTVU put the count higher, calling it the sixth violent incident of the year at the location. Either figure describes a store under sustained siege.

What sets Brar's account apart is what he says he can't do. He told NBC Bay Area he can't afford to close because he's bound to a long-term lease, and he won't install window bars or heavier locks because it would gut the entire premise of a corner store. "These corner gas stations, 7-Elevens, they're called convenience stores, where the customer can get in and out in three to five minutes," Brar said. "I will not close the door. I will not put the bars there." He believes crime like this is part of why other franchises have already left the city.

The manager, identified by KTVU as Sagar Sagar, described a deeper sense of powerlessness. "I cannot do something. If I do something, police arrest me," he said. KTVU also reported that in September 2023 a man was found dead in the store's parking lot, hours after a separate robbery.

Oakland City Councilmember Charlene Wang, who represents the district and chairs the council's Public Safety Committee, framed the response around staffing. "We're working on securing International Boulevard," Wang told KTVU. "This is a priority of mine." She said newly trained officers are expected to hit the streets in the coming months, increasing patrols.

That timeline is the crux. The owner's asks — faster response times, more patrols, stronger enforcement against repeat offenders — are immediate. The city's answer is a class of officers still in training. NBC Bay Area reported it reached out to OPD for comment and had not received a response; the department has confirmed only that it is investigating.

The Dissent has not independently verified the video circulated by the owner, the precise dollar figure, or the count of prior incidents, which the owner and his employees describe differently. What is consistent across all three accounts: a repeat-targeted store on a commercial corridor, workers who say they feared for their lives, and a remedy measured in months.