New Legislation: Shoplifter

Shopkeeper Dept: The shopkeeper s testimony was full of evasions, contradictions and hardly credible assertions, said Justice Ramez Khawly, according to The Star. There may be merit to clarifying the Criminal Code, but Justice Khawly said it was a red herring in the Chinatown case. A serial thief had clearly come back to steal again, thereby justifying a citizen s arrest, but not the disproportionate force used in this case, the judge ruled. That s why prosecutors persisted with this case, despite public opinion suggesting the thief an unlikeable and unrepentant drug dealer got what he deserved when he was hog-tied and everyone has an opinion on the trial of Chinatown grocer David Chen; yet no one can know what really happened when he hog-tied a suspected shoplifter and loaded him into a van. Not even the judge, who on Friday pointedly questioned Chen s account that he was merely making a citizen s arrest. To be sure, Chen s story has struck a chord in this city: a hardworking immigrant shopkeeper victimized by an admitted thief only to find himself charged with assault and forcible confinement. The Crown argued that a citizen s arrest must be made precisely at the time a crime is committed, not after the fact. Two Toronto MPs rallied to Chen s side to propose new legislation allowing the apprehension of a suspect after a reasonable time has elapsed. As reported in the news.
@t red herring, ramez