Tumika Alston, co-owner of Phone Repair Tech, sits inside her store in the Adams Morgan neighbourhood of Washington on September 1. Photo / Tom Brenner, The Washington Post
At first she thought it was a joke: an unknown number calling her cellphone, a voice on the other end saying it was from the White House.
Tumika Alston’s mind began to race: was this for real? Did something happen? Was she in trouble? Could this be about the store?
Just a few days earlier, Alston had given an interview to a local television station after a legion of teens forced their way into the 24-hour convenience store she owns in northeast Washington DC, broke the door, toppled shelves and made off with thousands of dollars in merchandise.
She was mad and desperate. So, she told the reporter from Channel 7 the first thing that came to mind: “I’m telling Trump, yeah, send the boys to Benning Rd”.
By then, United States President Donald Trump had declared a crime emergency in DC and ordered forces from a long list of federal agencies to patrol the city’s streets.
National Guard troops were stationed outside federal buildings and famous monuments. The thrum of helicopters and wail of sirens sounded at all hours.
The White House told Alston that the Administration was concerned about what had happened at her store, she later recalled, and that it wanted to know more.
She agreed to a visit. Maybe that would get her some extra security, she thought, or direct all those cops to some place they might do some good.
When the White House team arrived, she said, all they had were cameras.
The following day, Alston’s face and story were broadcast to the nearly 13 million people who follow the White House on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Underneath looping grainy surveillance video of the burglary, the White House wrote on its Instagram page: “Tumika’s story is just one of the many the Fake News isn’t reporting”.
“Sometimes I be afraid to walk out this door, go to my car,” Alston, 46, says in the video.
“People work hard for their business. They’re tired of kids looting; they’re stealing every day.”
Alston said she watched in horror as the number of people sharing and commenting on the video grew.
She didn’t like the dramatic music laid under her voice or the way the clip made her seem muted and frightened.
“They make me sound dramatic, like I was crying,” she said recently. “Like, what the hell? They trying to make a Tubi TV movie?”
In an emailed statement, the White House pointed to Alston’s story as an example of what happens in a city that is, as Trump has repeatedly said, overrun with crime.
“Like many DC residents, Tumika has experienced firsthand what happens when criminals are allowed free reign [rein] of a city with no consequences,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to the Post.
“President Trump’s crime crackdown has significantly driven down violent crime in the city and will help business owners like Tumika.
“The White House is proud to showcase her story, as well as other DC residents, who are directly impacted by the President’s successful efforts.”
When the White House invited Alston to come in the day after the video was published for a news conference, she declined. She didn’t go on the complimentary tour it offered her, either. Instead, she’s been doing damage control.
As she reads through messages accusing her of betraying her community and supporting Trump (whom, she would like to clarify, she did not vote for), she wonders if she needs to make a public social media statement of her own.
“I feel like they’ve used me to put that story out there just for the narrative, to use it for an excuse, for more troops to be out there harassing people,” Alston said recently. “I want them to take that video down, I really do.”
Alston and her husband, Sajib Uddula, 37, opened Best Tobacco and Wireless in Hechinger Mall this year. Despite citywide data showing crime is dropping, the area around the store has been hit hard by gun violence and property crime.
Alston, a DC native, said she and her husband knew what they were getting into.
Just before the grand opening of the new shop, the body of a 62-year-old woman was found inside a dumpster at the strip mall.
Knowing the area’s challenges is part of what motivated her to want to open a business there, Alston said.
“I thought about how people can’t get to grocery stores,” she said. “So that’s why I was like putting different stuff in that neighbourhood, you know? We got stuff that 7-Eleven don’t have. Dog food, cat food, human food.”
Before the store was looted, Alston said, she had a shelf full of produce at the front: garlic, potatoes, onions, fruits and vegetables. She stocks milk and eggs, sandwich meat, and sliced bread. She makes sure to carry pet food and baby formula.
“We’re just trying to be like a little grocery for people,” she said.
It also has what you might expect from a convenience store open at all hours: a slushy machine, an ATM, tobacco products and chips, some cleaning supplies and non-perishable foods. There are also electronics, hookahs and other novelty items.
Uddula and Alston were asleep at home on August 8 when they got a call from their staff at the Hechinger Mall store.
Dozens of teens had rushed the shop, the clerk told them, knocking over shelves and grabbing whatever they could.
One employee was injured as the teens threw canned food and other “hard objects” at the workers in the store, according to a police report. Another was hurt trying to keep the door shut against a wave of attackers.
DC police said the investigation into the incident at the store is ongoing, and as of the weekend, no arrests had been made.
The day after the robbery, Alston said, a dozen or so teens came back “for a second attempt”.
“I just want them kids to stop setting up my store,” Alston said. “That’s all I ever wanted out of all this.”
When the camera crew from the White House came to her store last week, Alston thought they were filming a public service announcement, something about parents keeping better track of their children.
She told them how she gives food to kids who ask, that she tries to help neighbours who are struggling.
She said she talked about parental responsibility and discipline, the importance of knowing where teens are when they’re out of the house.
But that’s not how the video turned out, she said.
“I called them, and I said, ‘Why’d y’all make me sound so dramatic, adding that theme music in the background?’ … I didn’t like it,” Alston said.
“He told me, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. We got your back.’ This, that and the other, and y’all ain’t got my back. I said, ‘Y’all is trying to use me.’”
As soon as the Trump Administration posted its video, Alston said, her phone started pinging with messages from friends and family and neighbours. Everyone had an opinion – or advice.
Some told her it seemed as though she was taking Trump’s side at a time when federal officers were violently arresting Washingtonians from the neighbourhoods in which Alston runs her business.
Others told her that all publicity is good publicity and that she should do whatever she could to keep her name in the public arena. It might even dissuade further attacks on her shop, family members said.
But the more Alston saw of the federal crackdown, she said, the more distance she wanted from it. She declined interviews with reporters from several national and local broadcasters. Soon, she stopped taking the White House’s calls.
“My community kept saying, ‘Be careful, girl. Be careful, because they’re probably using you as a pawn,’” Alston said.
The day before she and her family were scheduled to attend a private tour through the People’s House, she said, all she could think about was her husband and his safety. Uddula is an immigrant from Bangladesh.
“I was thinking about it, and I’m scared of even going in to do that,” she said.
Saturday morning came and went. They didn’t go.
On a recent weekday afternoon, customers looking for cigarettes and soft drinks ambled in past a new addition to the store’s security system: a handwritten sign taped on the door warning unaccompanied minors to stay out. Alston said she wrote it herself.
“No kids allowed without parents!!!” the sign reads. “Parents keep attention to kids at all times. Must be 21 years old to buy tobacco products.”
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