Police files

Two would-be shoplifters are in police custody thanks to a citizen's efforts after they first managed to subdue a security guard at Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre last week.

When a security guard first spotted and attempted to stop them, one of the suspects attacked and bit him on March 10 at about 12 p.m. The two suspects then ran off, but not before a bystander witnessed the whole incident and decided to give chase.

According to Const. Lilana Belucci, the suspects fled the scene on foot, and the witness flagged a car in the parking lot outside to go after them. He then managed to apprehend one of the suspects as the other escaped.

However, thanks to the witness testimony, police had a description and managed to track him down.

The nervous suspect turned himself over to a police in a cruiser in the end, Belucci added.

Montreal police are on the look-out for an approximately 24-year-old, anglophone black man with black hair and a small beard, around 5 feet 10 inches tall, after he made off with a donations box for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) at a depanneur on St. John's Boulevard last Tuesday afternoon.

According to the owner, the man first tried to grab the box, without realizing it was tethered to the cash register with a metal cable. When the owner blocked his way out of the store, the man revealed a pair of pliers, threatened the owner with them, and cut the box loose.

The owner then ran outside, and asked for help. He came back in with a bystander and tried to grab the burglar, but they only wound up with his coat in their hands as he made off with the box.