Mark Oprea
Buckeye residents successfully rallied to keep the Huntington Bank branch off East 118th from closing permanently. Then, on Wednesday, their ATM was stolen.
Buckeye residents balked and rallied. Taking away this branch would leave only one other one, a Key Bank, a block over. Vacating would, they said, leave neighbors with an inconvenience. Huntington acquiesced: in March they rescinded their letter of intent to permanently vacate, yet left their ATM operable as the main store emptied.
On Wednesday, that ATM was stolen.
As News 5 first reported, the cash machine on the western side of the building was ripped right from the wall, sometime in the middle of the night. By Wednesday afternoon, police had covered up the hole of machinery with a piece of plywood.
“We are aware of the damage to our Buckeye Road ATM, and are cooperating with police as they investigate," a Huntington Bank spokesperson wrote Scene in an email.
Mark Oprea
A nearby shop owner said he's recorded three gun-related incidents in his store in the past year.
In the Buckeye neighborhood, which is nestled between Shaker Square and Woodland Hills, the anecdotal and hard data around crime point to different takeaways.
According to police data, there have been 278 reports of assault, 63 burglaries and 120 incidents of theft in Ward 4, where Buckeye's located—all declining numbers from the same period last year.
Yet, homicides in the area have doubled. Weapons charges have jumped up 30 to 40 percent.
Which, said residents close to where Huntington's ATM was stolen, are resemblant of the street's status quo.
"People are crazy here," a shop owner on Buckeye Road told Scene on Wednesday. "A lot of people rip people off. Shots are fired, like, every day. I've been here two years—the worst two years of my life."
That shop owner, who wished to remain anonymous in fear of retaliation, showed Scene three videos from his CCTV system depicting a series of shootouts in front of his store, and close to Huntington. (In one, a man in a tank top shoots what appears to be a long rifle stuffed in a cardboard box container.)
It's why, that shop owner believes that Huntington Bank beefed up its security across the street late last year.
"Everyone carries a gun here," he said. He nodded to the firearm on his waist, which he's been carrying since 2019. "Never had to use it," he added. "It's a shield."
Huntington Bank did not say if or when their ATM on Buckeye would be reinstalled.
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