This shop keeper was so frustrated at reporting shoplifters to the police and getting nowhere he stopped reporting them. So he decided to take matters in his own hands, only to be charged himself.
David Chen wore a patiently strained smile as he sat in the back of a Toronto courthouse yesterday morning, shifting only slightly while he waited to face charges for the alleged assault and kidnapping of a shoplifter outside of his Chinatown produce store.
Despite being surrounded by supporters from the Chinese-Canadian community, Mr. Chen-- the city's most notorious shopkeeper -- seemed out of place. He was a far cry from the Lucky Moose Market, the shop he owns just off of Spadina Avenue.
Until May, when Mr. Chen and two employees were charged with attacking and confining a shoplifter who had returned to his store, the Chinese immigrant spent most of his time behind his shop counter.
Yesterday, however, was spent with his lawyer in court, with a brief midmorning break in front of a swarm of television cameras and news reporters.
"I feel anxious and nervous," he said in English, through his strained smile, before turning to a supporter for help translating.
"I feel this is really unfair to me...I feel a lot of pressure. I don't have a lot of time to run my business."
Mr. Chen was arrested in May and charged with the alleged assault and kidnapping of a suspected shoplifter, Anthony Bennett.
Surveillance video from May 23, 2009, shows Mr. Bennett taking a tray of plants from outside the Lucky Moose Market and stowing it on the back of his bicycle before riding off.
An hour later, he returned. Mr. Chen and two employees chased him, caught him, bound his hands and held him in the back of a van until police arrived.
Because the citizen's arrest did not occur during the commission of an offence, Mr. Chen was charged with assault, kidnapping, forcible confinement and concealment of a weapon, a box cutter he kept on his belt.
Mr. Bennett was charged with two counts of shoplifting, one relating to a King Street flower shop. But after agreeing to testify as a Crown witness against Mr. Chen, he pleaded guilty and his sentence was significantly reduced.
Mr. Chen's lawyer, Peter Lindsay, said he had hoped to have the charges against his client dropped yesterday. Instead, prosecutors appeared ready to proceed with them all.
"Mr. Chen is being dragged through our criminal courts and it is ridiculous to me," he said.
Mr. Lindsay said yesterday prosecutors wanted Mr. Chen to plead guilty to the charges of forcible confinement and concealing a weapon. He said there was no chance Mr. Chen would plead guilty to anything.
"What today's events say about our justice system is that up is down and left is right and everything is perverse," he said on the steps of the courthouse.
Dropping the kidnapping charge, an indictable offence, was still being considered by the Crown. By facing an indictable offence, Mr. Chen would be guaranteed a jury trial. Mr. Lindsay said he would love to have a jury of his peers decide Mr. Chen's fate.
"Right and wrong is pretty obvious to ordinary members of the public. I have great faith in ordinary members of the public, but I really lose faith in our judicial system when it treats people the way Mr. Chen is treated."
Mr. Lindsay said Mr. Bennett had a criminal record dating back to 1976 and admitted in his guilty plea to feeding a crack addiction by stealing from local businesses.
Along the strip of markets and shops in Chinatown, where few speak English as their first language, Mr. Chen is considered a hero for standing up to Mr. Bennett, who had been stealing from area shops for years.
Shopkeepers went into a frenzy at the mention of him. He was notorious in Chinatown for shoplifting. Grabbing plants from one location and selling them up the street was his specialty, one shopkeeper said.
Outside Asian Arts City, with its rows of bonsai trees and ceramic elephant statues, owner John Chan pantomimed the actions of a thief as the owner of a nearby clothing store vigorously nodded in agreement.
Mr. Chan claimed he had stolen plants from outside his shop as recently as two weeks ago, not long after being released from jail.
"He took a big pot of flowers," Mr. Chan's wife, Mei-Kuan Huang, wrote in testimony identifying Mr. Bennett as a serial shoplifter. "It sold for $29 plus tax."
If Mr. Chen's case does go to trial, Mr. Lindsay promised there would be a constitutional challenge to redefine when a citizen's arrest is permitted.
"All we want is the Criminal Code to work for the store owners, and not for the criminals," said Chi-Kun Shi, a supporter and member of the Victim's Rights Action Committee.
There was some victory for Chinatown shopkeepers yesterday. By late afternoon, Toronto police confirmed they had received testimony collected by Mr. Lindsay and had interviewed Ms. Huang about the alleged theft of the pot of flowers.
An investigation into that incident has been launched.
Mr. Chen's trial date will likely be set at his next court appearance, on Nov. 3.
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