PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) – The owner of a local food cart is looking for help with repairs after it was broken into Monday morning.
Tim Turcotte, owner of Esan Thai Eastport in Southeast Portland, found a window on his roof smashed and a cart shaken.
Turcotte, who lives down the street, says he received a phone call around 5:30 a.m. about people carrying things through the fence.
He ran outside in his robe and saw two men stealing carts, pipes and cables from at least four other food carts. That’s when he took action.
“One guy started coming at me so I literally ran into him and tackled him because I didn’t know what he was going to do,” Turcotte said. “I kind of left it up.”
The suspect left and Turcotte brought all the items back.
Turcott’s cart was also broken into five weeks ago, forcing him to add more locks, but the suspects still managed to get inside.
“They cut out almost all the metal they could, broke off anything that was blocking them. I still don’t know how they got through that little hole, but now everything is broken, all the structure is gone,” Turcotte said. “There was just soda spilled everywhere, the fridge was open, we looked at it and there were no cans of water, no cans of soda. They just emptied it into the sink.”
He had to throw away $1,000 worth of food, while repairs could cost him $6,500 to $7,500.
Turcotte says police gave him shocking answers on three separate occasions.
“In the last raid, they literally told us that there are not enough police officers, that there are not enough descriptions of people, that it will just go on a piece of paper, in a file and no one will look at it again,” said Turcotte. “They said we had to act on our own.”
Esan is open for business, but Turcotte calls it unfortunate. He says he hopes to get back on track so he can continue to help his community.
“We’ve raised money for various businesses that have been raided in the past year, we’ve always raised money and donated all the money to everyone else, even when it was happening to us.”
Turcotte says he has no plans to move locations, but plans to add more security to his cart. He often checks his stroller every few hours in the middle of the night, wondering when he will be able to go back to sleep.
Turcotte describes the suspect as a white man in his 30s, with a tattooed face over his eyebrows, a baseball cap, torn clothing and shoes without laces.
There is a GoFundMe page for the owners if anyone would like to donate.
Copyright 2022 KPTV via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.