Parker Eshelman photo

Mike Cook, 43, of Columbia says an assault and armed robbery involving him and three other workers early yesterday at a newspaper distribution center in north Columbia have shaken his views on race and how he sees his hometown. “This has stopped my life in its tracks,” he said. Police said the holdup was more violent than a typical robbery.

Standing in the misty rain yesterday evening, Mike Cook surveyed his backyard, dotted with empty flower beds he’s not sure he’ll be able to plant.

"Every time I bend over, my nose starts bleeding," Cook said, adding that he had been counting on his backyard gardens to lift him out of the winter doldrums and add color back into his life. "They took that from me. This has stopped my life in its tracks."

Early yesterday, Cook and three co-workers were robbed at gunpoint while assembling copies of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for their morning distribution routes. One of the gunmen kicked Cook in the face, and he suffered nerve and retina damage in addition to a broken nose, cheekbone and eye socket.

This morning, Cook, 43, met with a surgeon to decide whether it would be better to heal without intervention and run the risk of permanent double vision in his left eye or to surgically implant a metal plate in his cheek to hold his eye in place.

The few scrapes and minor bruising on Cook’s face belie his severe internal damage, just as the robbery resulted in Cook’s loss of only $1 and coins but has shaken him to the core.

"It’s made me re-examine some deep-rooted prejudices that I thought I had managed to kind of uproot," Cook said. "I live in a primarily African-American neighborhood, and I love my neighbors. I’m proud of the history of this neighborhood having been established as a haven for African-Americans. … But yet, it’s so easy to associate those two men that assaulted me, to give them a blanket association with race. I’m constantly having to remind myself that these were two individuals, not representative of their subculture, not representative of their race."

Police Sgt. Ken Hammond described the incident as a "take-over" robbery that’s more violent than the typical holdup.

"Violent robberies like this, we’re seeing them more throughout the city," he said. "They rush in on a blitz and take over the situation, making" victims "get on the floor."

Police have no suspects.

Cook works with other carriers for an independent newspaper distribution center in the basement of a Butler building at 3100 Brown Station Road. The center is managed by Linda McBee, whose husband, Larry, and 19-year-old son, Jacob, were assembling papers along with Cook and Gandhi Said just after 2 a.m. yesterday.

The building has a garage door, "and when the weather is nice we like to leave the door open," Cook said. Soon after a delivery truck pulled away, Said and Cook said, two young black men armed with a pistol and a short-barrel shotgun entered the warehouse.

"I just like, looked at them. And there is a gun," Said reported. "And there is another gun. It’s just like, five feet from me, both of them, right away. I" have been "in the country 25 years, and I’ve only seen this kind of thing in the movies. It was exactly like a movie."

Cook said he, too, could not believe what was happening. "And I didn’t feel fear until a couple seconds later until I realized, ‘This is a real gun.’ "

One gunman had a dark complexion, was at least 6 feet tall and 220 pounds and wore a black hoodie and pink bandana, Cook said. The other gunman had a lighter complexion and an athletic build and was about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, wearing a dark hoodie and bandana.

Larry McBee, 45, told the robbers he had no money. "The guy with the pistol … then pointed the gun at my son’s head and took his wallet," he said.

Cook said he had less than $2 in his pocket and placed the money and his wallet on the concrete floor. Said, 51, handed over the $15 in his pocket.

"They made the rounds, threatening, blustering, full of machismo," Cook said. "Having gotten, in toto, less than $20, they reiterated demands that we stay laying down. … I made the mistake of looking up before the smaller of the two" was out the door. "He saw me look up. … He said, ‘I told you to keep your head down, motherf--!’ He made a running start - imagine a game of kickball - and kicked me in the face."

Interviewed in his living room, Cook said his immediate future rests on what surgeons tell him today.

He lacks health insurance, which only adds to his angst. "The ER doctor said, ‘You can be a burden to society if you go on disability and don’t get these things taken care of because you will have visual problems if you do not heal properly. Or, we can take care of this and worry about how we’ll pay for it down the road.’ "

Cook said he hopes the Missouri Crime Victims’ Compensation Program will help offset his costs.

The physical and mental trauma of the robbery will stay with him a long time, Cook said, but the outpouring of support from his neighbors and co-workers has surprised and uplifted him.

"This whole experience has given me a lot to think about: fear, prejudice, having been born and raised in Columbia, always feeling like this was such a safe place to be," Cook said. "And then having been victimized, it changes my perspective. … Right now, … I feel violated, and my perspective on the town has changed. But in the next days, weeks, months, however long this journey takes, I hope to have some growth from it, to regain my faith."

Anyone with information may contact CrimeStoppers online at 875tips.com or at 875-8477.

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