Mother of Four Fends Off Armed Burglar at Work
A store owner who stood up to an armed robber says her four kids, including one in college, were the inspiration she needed to scare off the burglar.
Dawn Khawaja, the 44-year-old owner of a convenience store in Manchester, N.H., was reading a book while working a late shift on Saturday evening. At around 11:30, a man rushed in and headed straight to the counter. “He immediately showed me he had a knife and was saying, ‘Give me the money, give me the money,’” Khawaja tells Yahoo Parenting. “I just said, ‘Really?’ and smiled, grabbed my bigger knife and said, ‘Now what?’ He jumped back, looked at me as if to decide if he could take me, and bolted toward the door.”
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Dawn Khawaja was inspired by her four kids when she scared off an armed robber in her convenience store. (Photo: WBZ)
Khawaja, who has owned Down the Block Grocery Store for 17 years, says she’s never had any issue like this before, but a friend who is also a customer bought her the bowie knife recently after learning of a few other robberies in the neighborhood. “He asked me to keep it in the store, but I never thought I’d have to use it,” she says. “This shocked me.”
The incident happened so fast, Khawaja says that she barely had time to be scared, but that her thoughts immediately flashed to her four kids, especially her oldest daughter, a college sophomore. “She works so hard to get as many scholarships as she can, but still we have to pay,” Khawaja says. “She wants a good future, and she deserves it, and this guy is going to take this from me? Maybe he doesn’t understand, the little bit he might take would hurt us so bad that I might not be able to make a payment for her college.”
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This would-be burglar was scared off when Dawn Khawaja showed him her bowie knife. (Photo: WBZ)
Khawaja says that all the money she makes goes toward raising her kids, who are 20, 17, 13, and 10, and that no robber is going to take that from her. “I don’t understand what is going through these people’s minds,” she says. “They don’t know how many years and hours a day we work. They think, ‘It’s just $100 or $200,’ but we work hard for it, and when someone tries to take it from us, of course we are going to be angry or hurt — it’s for our kids.”
Had her children been in the store that night, Khawaja says she has no idea what she would have done, but even without them present they were on her mind. “I love them so much and I will do anything for them,” she says. “Whether you have one kid or four, it’s work. Kids need everything from their parents, and we want to help them and raise them to be the people they want to be. I want to give my daughter a great future so that she doesn’t have to slave hours and hours like my husband and I do.”
Her oldest child wants to be a doctor, Khawaja says, and her second oldest is on his way to college soon.
Police still haven’t found the suspect, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a bandanna over his face. But Khawaja has a message for him: “Just don’t try to take from my kids,” she says. “That’s all I ask.”
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