He is just frying fries again, but Henri van Son (61) is still very scared. On Saturday evening, two young boys enter his business in Odiliapeel with a saber, a kind of sword, and try to take the cash register. Erwin Lips passes by the cafeteria and sees that something is wrong. He rams the scooter with which the perpetrators want to flee with his car. “Henri shouted ‘help, robbery’ and I saw the robbers get on the scooter. I thought ‘I have to hit them’.”
It is just before half past seven when two boys wearing all black enter Eethuis De Buurman. “One had a large sabre. I thought it was a Halloween act. But they immediately shouted ‘money, money, money’. Then I realized it wasn’t a joke.”
Henri tries to pull off the balaclava of one of the robbers. “That’s how I pulled him forward, because I have a camera hanging there.” A brief struggle ensues at the front of the store. “Suddenly the other perpetrator takes a pocket knife from his pocket. I grabbed a chair to fend off.” Ultimately, Henri chooses his own safety and runs outside. “That’s where I started calling for help. Immediately someone in a car came to help me.”
In that car was Erwin Lips, he has been called ‘the hero of Odiliapeel’ since Saturday evening. Erwin is driving past the cafeteria in his father’s car when he sees a running scooter in front of the door. Inside he sees two men in black. “I was driving home and saw a scooter with the engine running. I looked inside and saw some people all dressed in black. So I drove back.”
“I saw that one had such a big knife. It could have ended differently.”
While Henri calls for help outside, the robbers try to steal the cash register. Try, because camera images show that they don’t get far. They pull the cash drawer from the counter, but because it is attached to the computer with cables, they cannot take it outside. And so they run without any loot to their scooter that is ready for the cafeteria.
But Erwin puts a stop to that. He knocks over the scooter, and the two robbers, aged 15 and 17, both run in different directions. “In retrospect I was lucky, I saw that one had such a large knife. It could have turned out differently.”
“People write down the order themselves and then I can bake.”
Last week Henri celebrated that he and his cafeteria have been in Odiliapeel for 35 years. It was not a real party. Two months ago he also experienced a robbery. “Then it was a chef’s knife and they came in with a helmet.” And it hasn’t been a party for the 61-year-old cafeteria owner in recent years anyway.
“People have stopped because of the corona period,” he says. “It’s hard to get people because it’s only for a few hours.” And so Henri has been alone in his cafeteria for a few years. “People write down the order themselves and then I can bake.” But that does make Henri vulnerable.
“I am now more alert when the door opens.”
“I have to get back to work, I have to open again,” he says matter-of-factly. And so on Sunday Henri is alone in his shop again, baking fries and snacks. “I want to continue doing this for the time being, I’m just looking ahead. But I am more alert when the door opens and I ensure that there is as little cash as possible in the cash register.”
Ultimately, the two young perpetrators from Land van Cuijk were arrested by the police on Saturday evening. A third suspect has been released because he had nothing to do with the robbery.