“Neighbors come to rescue of robbed Regent Square shop”

Neighbors come to rescue of robbed Regent Square shop

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:00 PM PST

Different people have different reactions when they're staring down the barrel of a gun.

"My first impulse was that it was a joke. I thought to myself that I had to get the gun out of the kid's hand," Ute Norman recalled. "Then my brain kicked in and told me it's probably best not to try to take it away from him."

Nina Wolf described the moment as "surreal."

"I had this sort of detached feeling," she said. "It was almost as if it was happening to someone else."

It wasn't.

Last month, two men walked into Animal Nature, a pet store on Forbes Avenue in Regent Square that Norman and Wolf opened in May. A weapon was brandished, money demanded.

The bold robbery in broad daylight was startling.

Banks and jewelry stores are frequent robbery targets, not pet shops. They usually have more kibble than cash on hand.

Criminals don't always think those things through, though. That's how Norman, Wolf and two others in the store wound up on the floor while their wallets and cell phones were taken and the cash register emptied.

"They also took about $200 from the collection box we have for LionHearts, a feline sanctuary in Virginia," Wolf of Edgewood said.

The robbery was one of seven Regent Square holdups that prompted Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. to announce that surveillance cameras will be installed along busy Braddock Avenue.

Police arrested two men in connection with the Animal Nature robbery -- Jayme Keeton and Demar Jones, both 19 and from Wilkinsburg. But even with the suspects in tow, the store owners found the experience difficult to shake.

"I keep thinking (the robbers) took my innocence a little. I was looking at people coming in the store a bit differently than I did before," said Norman, a Berlin native who moved to Pittsburgh three years ago from Los Angeles.

Then strangers started arriving. Strangers bearing gifts.

"Right after it happened, on a day when it was icy outside, this older gentleman with a cane hobbled in and put $5 in the collection box," Wolf said. "He had never been here before. He just wanted to help."

That generous gesture was outdone by the man who gave Norman $85.

"He said he heard about our misfortune and we had earned the money. We never saw him before," she said. "That just blew my mind."

The nearby Waverly Presbyterian Church on Forbes donated $185 to replace the lost contributions to the feline sanctuary. Some of the church members also made individual donations, according to the Rev. Rebecca Hickok.

"We've been delighted to have them in the community, and we wanted to help them build that fund back," she said. "There was concern they might decide to close or move after what happened. No one could have blamed them if they had."

Overwhelmed by their neighbors' generosity, Norman and Wolf have no intention of abandoning the store.

"After the encouragement and support we've received, there's no way that's going to happen," Wolf said. "We're not budging."

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