Cafe owned by Turkish family trashed in ‘unacceptable’ hate crime, California cops say

A group of men vandalized a California restaurant and attacked its employees in a hate crime, Beverly Hills police said.

Between six and eight men in their 20s or 30s made “pro-Armenia” statements to the workers during the attack Wednesday, police said in a Thursday news release.

The victims had minor injuries, and police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

“The BHPD is investigating this unacceptable act of hate and violence,” Beverly Hills Mayor Lester Friedman said in the news release. “There is no place in our City for this behavior and we ask members of the public to please come forward with any information on the suspects in this case.”

Police did not name the restaurant, but local news outlets reported that the owners of Cafe Istanbul were the target, according to the Los Angeles Times. The cafe is owned by a Turkish family, according to KABC.

Video shows men throwing chairs and “trashing the small eatery,” Fox 11 reported.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” the owner of the restaurant told Fox 11.

On Thursday, the cafe’s windows were boarded with plywood and a sign read “Armenians attacked this business,” the Times reported.

This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 10:47 AM with the headline "Cafe owned by Turkish family trashed in ‘unacceptable’ hate crime, California cops say."