Thavy Men is full of gratitude for the support she has received from the community following the attempted robbery by a masked man with a hammer at her Salisbury Store.
Bunches of flowers were given to her in the days following the frightening intrusion last Monday and members of the community dropped in to voice their concerns and wish her well.
By then, the shaking had stopped from the shock of seeing the masked man make demands from her son-in-law, Lucky, who was at the counter.
Thavy was working at the back of the shop, packing bags of lollies, when she noticed the masked man on the screen that is linked to the cameras in the shop.
“I saw this person who didn’t look like a nice person. I went in to carefully tell Lucky that he looked like a bad person,” she says.
“Then the man pulled a hammer from his pocket to smash the till and he said, ‘give me the money, give me the money’. My son-in-law didn’t know what he was talking about and said, ‘pardon me?’”
When the man first pulled the hammer from his pocket, Thavy says Lucky thought it was a gun.
The masked man, who had a black hoodie covering his head and was also wearing sunglasses and a black mask, then tapped the hammer a couple of times in an aggressive manner on the top of the till. When Lucky pressed the fog cannon button, fog instantly filled the shop and it set off the alarm which sent the would-be-robber fleeing through the door.
“I nearly had a heart attack; it was such a shock. I was trying to phone the police and I was just shaking so much,” says Thavy.
“When the fog cannon goes off, you can’t even see each other. It’s just blurry.”
Thavy has owned the business for more than 10 years, but this is the first time it has been targeted.
The fog cannon was installed in the shop just two months ago through the Government fog-cannon subsidy.
Her daughter was in a bedroom behind the shop feeding her new baby when the attempted robbery took place, and that added to her fear.
She admits to being “a little bit nervous now” but knows she has the community support.
“From my heart I want to say thank you for the support and the care for us. And thanks for the bunches of flowers.”
