Three women were walking east on 20th Street Monday at 1:10 a.m. when two Hispanic men, one armed with a gun, got out of the car near Folsom Street, took the women’s purses and then fled east on 20th Street, police said.
Patrick Kocourek, owner of El Faro Restaurant, on the corner near where the robbery took place, said he is concerned about violence in the neighborhood, but feels it has improved in the three years since he purchased the restaurant.
“It fluctuates … everything’s beautiful and then something bad happens like robberies or shootings,” he said. “ Like what happened the other day over on 24th Street,” he continued referring to a Sunday shooting that left two dead and one wounded.
Kocourek said El Faro is one of many Mission businesses that close early, at least partly, to avoid problems with crime.
Dave Beauvais, the dean of John O’Connell High School, also within a block of the robbery, said his primary concern is his students’ safety, but added that he is cautious if he walks around the Mission at night.
“It’s an urban environment. You’ve got to keep your street eyes out,” said Beauvais, a Detroit-native. “If I’m out at night I stay on Valencia or Mission Street. Wherever there are a lot of people.”
Beauvais said he is more troubled by gang activity, especially in the wake of the fatal shootings.
Charles Papillo, a nearby resident, said he’s cautious, but not too worried.
Papillo, 23, recently moved to the Mission District from Vermont and says his approach to city-living is to avoid walking around alone late at night.
“I just try to be savvy about these things,” said Papillo, who lives just one block from last night’s robbery. “But to hear that this happened so close to my apartment, of course that concerns me.”
The women did not report injuries and no arrests have been made in relation to Monday’s robbery.