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Downtown Business Picks up the Pieces after Protest Turned Violent Downtown business picks up the pieces after a protest turned violent

By Darrell Cunningham

Nicholas Giarrusso: Angry at fact at what I saw. Thats my career, that is how I eat, that is how I pay my bills, that is how I survive is by off that store.

Darrell Cunningham: While some come to peacefully protest the murder of George Floyd. Others came with a different purpose in mind.

Nicholas Giarrusso: I’m watching everybody jump into the window take all the stuff and right back out, so I watched it all happen as I was driving to the store.

Darrell Cunningham: Some looters took full advantage of closed stores while others expressed how they felt on the sidewalk.

Darrell Cunningham: The Onondaga country sheriffs department arrived in tanks while Syracuse police swat team took to the streets to end the rioting.

Darrell Cunningham: Nicholas said it is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars to reopen his store but he said that cost doesn’t compare to the lives lost to police brutality against African Americans.

Nicholas Giarrusso: There are kids out there who are never going to wake up and see their mother and fathers they’re fathers and mothers.

Darrell Cunningham: Nicholas and his company ambition upstate will be back in business in a couple of months, and while this is a setback of sorts he said this is not a total lost.

Nicholas Giarrusso: If i have to be one of those little bystanders that get clipped along the way as long as the end result is for a good cause I’m fine with that I truly am fine with that.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) —  Shattered glass and an empty store are what Nick Giarrusso was left with Sunday morning. His store, Ambition Upstate, was one of the many businesses looted after Saturday’s protest turned violent.

“I’m just still lost at words; I don’t know how to wrap my head around it,” said Giarrusso.

It wasn’t a complete surprise to Giarusso because he saw it as it was happening. But he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I was driving to my store, and I literally was watching them steal everything out of my store from cell phone,” said Giarrusso.

Giarusso said the repairs and replacing merchandise would cost more than $10,000. He said while there is a long road ahead of him, he feels for his clientele that had a safe space to visit when they felt like they had nowhere else to go.

“Whoever did it, you hurt the community as well. There’s a lot of young kids that came into that shop that didn’t wanna sit home with their home lives that came into that store just to sit down and talk to me,” Giarusso said. “You ruined that for them. You ruined a spotlight for one of your best friends that has a clothing line that needs an outlet of a store to put his clothing, you ruined that. You ruined your aspiring friends rapping career, or musical career, you ruined all of that.”

Giarrusso still has to go into the store and do a full inventory review before he’ll know the exact amount of loss.

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