By Gisela Perez-Mauri

On August 13, a warm sunny day in Manhattan, four men armed with a pistol entered Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame Corporation, a wholesale ranges and stove-supplies on 125th Street between Broadway and Manhattan Avenue. Upon entering, one of the intruders struck a male employee, named J.B.. In reacting, the store’s owner, Charles Augusto, did not hesitate to pull the trigger of his shotgun, never used before. When he was finished, two of the men lay dead and the other two, wounded.

The incident seems to have shaken business owners in the area and it particularly raised the alarm two doors down from Augusto’s store at the daycare center located in the basement of a church.

Shortly after the shooting, Janet Walters, a 40-year-old instructor at the Antioch Baptist Day Care Center, lined up her class of 2 to 6-year-old children to take them to the park. When she opened the door, she saw a dead body lying on the street and she shut the door quickly so the children couldn’t see.

“I just could see his feet because it was completely covered and I slammeed the door to make sure the kids did not see the body,” Walters said. “We work in the basement and we didn’t hear anything.”

Walter recalled that families of the children were “scared” on the day of the crime.

Since the fateful day, Pam Czar, the accountant at the daycare center, acknowledged that security has become a major concern for the school.

“Nobody thought about security before. But now we all are more conscious,” Czar said. “We always try to close the door from the street and lock it.”

“Now we always keep an eye on our security cameras, and we want to hire a security guard to make sure he filters the people entering here,” Czar, a mother of a teenager, went on. “You have to be careful because it might happen again and we deal with very young kids.”

The daycare center has reason to be concerned. According to recent police reports, robberies in Central Harlem have increased in 2009 by 1.6 percent since last year, a year that witnesed 189 of these crimes.

In 1990, the area was much more crime-ridden. Statistics show that then the area experienced 786 robberies. Overall crime in central Harlem has decreased by 77.60 percent from 1990 when this neighborhood had 3,380 crimes.

Nearly five months after he used his shotgun, Augusto and his employee J.B., who only uses his initials, have no regrets. He sat on a chair in his store last month, resting his back on the wall of a narrow hallway full of stoves, refrigerators, fryers and toasters. He read the paper, resting his right elbow and feet on an old wooden table, lit only by a small lamp.

“Some people told me that I should have killed them all,” said Augusto with a quiet voice. “You know, this time they got two prisoners, but next time there will be no prisoners. Either they kill me or I kill them.”

Augusto was not arrested for the shooting, despite using a pistol with an expired permit, police said. Bernard Witherspoon, 22, and Shamel McCloud, 21, the two men that attempt to rob Kaplan Brothers are both charged with robbery. McCloud, from East Elmhurst, Queens, was released on August 15, after pleading not guilty, on a $60,000 bond.

Augusto’s male employee, J.B., 35, sat at the very end of the long dark hall holding a Bible with his skinny fingers. J.B. got into a fight with the 29-year-old gunman James Morgan and got hit on the head.

“Augusto did what he had to do. I don’t feel remorse. They came here to do evil things and it turned around on them,” said J.B,. keeping a straight look. “All four should have been killed.”

Augusto says he feels more secure now after the incident.

“Now I feel safer because they won’t come back,” said Augusto.

Not all store owners around Kaplan Brothers, in 125 St, feel the same way.

David Rosa, the manager of the new 99 cents store next to Augusto’s place that opened one month ago, fears other incidents might occur.

“We weren’t here when it happened,” he said. “But, of course it’s something we are afraid of. It has already happened and may happen again.”

Rosa said that he has placed security cameras in his place and has hired a guard for the entrance.

“We try to keep our eyes open all the time, especially after that,” he said.

Down the street on Amsterdam Avenue, Jose Bravo, 24, watched the furniture store he manages from his desk.

“I think all store owners around [here] are somewhat afraid, but we try to go on,” said Bravo. “I personally try to be friendly with everybody, but always keep an eye on the cameras.”

This fear does not seem to affect the neighbors of this touristy and colorful street who seem to recall that August 13 with apparent tranquility. Most of them seem to sympathize with and support Augusto. However, one Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) employee, Tracy Brown, has a different take.

“The owner of that store should pay for what he did. He killed two men and he has not been arrested. If he were black he would be in prison,” emphasized Brown.