By Andrea Swalec and Murray Weiss
DNAinfo Staff
GREENWICH VILLAGE — Police have made two arrests following a riot in a Greenwich Village Dunkin' Donuts that sparked hundreds of people in the area to sign a petition calling for more security in the area.
Dwayne Jones, 20, from Queens, was arrested Wednesday and hit with seven charges, including attempted assault, criminal mischief, riot and criminal possession of a weapon. He was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday and ordered held on $2,500 cash bail or $7,500 bond, court documents show.
Two days earlier, police arrested a 15-year-old boy and charged him as a juvenile on charges including criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.
Nearly two dozens youths were caught on surveillance video mobbing the Dunkin’ Donuts at 75 Christopher Street just after 8 p.m. on May 16.
The shocking footage shows a wild scene as the apparently unprovoked rioters hurled tables and chairs at staff, menaced the staff, and snatched pastries from shelves behind the counter.
But they left the cash register untouched. The riot, which lasted only a couple of minutes, caused $2,500 worth of damage, staff said.
It was the latest of a series of incidents which have Christopher Street business owners worried the neighborhood is becoming a no-go area
Frank Shaffer, who was a witness to the May 16 attack, said he was happy to hear that police had arrested two people who allegedly took part in the attack — but that it doesn't solve the deeper problem.
"We've got to make sure that our neighborhood is a safe neighborhood. I hope that they are not arrested today and they release them tomorrow," Shaffer said.
Police emailed out an alert last month that they were looking for suspect Mark Wright, but as of Wednesday night he had not yet been arrested.
"It's nice that they're catching the kids," added Robert Ziegler, owner of the bar Boots and Saddle, who has long complained of rowdy kids rampaging through his bar.
Others in the neighborhood were less optimistic.
Kimberly Lewis, 34, a manager at the jewelry shop Accessorize, at the corner of Christopher and Bleecker streets, was skeptical of the larger impact of the arrests.
"That's good that there were arrests, but is it going to stop anything?" she said.
Diana Saro, 21, a counter worker at Tattoo Heaven, was thinking along the same lines.
"There's always going to be stupid stuff going on," she said. "You can put one person away but there are still more."
Additional reporting by Tuan Nguyen and Ben Fractenberg
