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Posted by: DeputyFife

Published: 10/02/2007
Cast-iron bear helps put the bite on shoplifter

Bob Cianfrocca kneels by the cast-iron bear broken when he used it to try to stop an alleged shoplifter at his Salt Marsh Antiques shop Sunday in Rowley. The woman was trying to flee in her car when Cianfrocca moved the bear to block her escape, and the car hit it. Employee Judy Kehs, right, tried to puncture a tire with a pair of scissors. The woman fled but later turned herself in to police. Bryan Eaton/Staff Photo
By Dan Atkinson
Staff Writer




ROWLEY - Helpful bystanders, a clerk with a pair of scissors and a cast-iron statue of a bear failed to stop a woman suspected of shoplifting at Salt Marsh Antiques Sunday, but they did recover her alleged booty - a $120 parrot-shaped bottle opener.
"It was far and away the most aggressive theft that's taken place here," owner Robert Cianfrocca said of the woman flight from the scene, which allegedly included driving into customers who were attempting to keep her car in place.
"It's the most aggressive situation I've ever witnessed as a human being ... it was a horrible display of human nature," Cianfrocca said.
Cianfrocca said the woman seemed like a nice person when she came to his store on Main Street about 3:30 p.m. But, he said, footage from his security cameras shows her taking the colorful bottle opener, which uses the parrot's gaping beak to remove bottlecaps, and placing it under her sweater.
When the woman, identified as Susan Hunter, 56, of 41 Via Villena, San Clemente, Calif., went to get in her car, she allegedly dropped the bottle opener before quickly scooping it back up again, according to the footage. Cianfrocca said he saw Hunter grab the opener and shove it into her car, and he immediately went over to the car and stood in the doorway, demanding the opener back.
Hunter first denied having the opener, Cianfrocca said, but eventually gave it back to him and tried to pay for it. Cianfrocca refused and went to call the police after taking down her rental car's license plate.
When he did that, Hunter got back in her car and tried to back out of the store's parking lot, according to the footage. However, two women pulled their car behind Hunter's, blocking her in.
"I've never seen people get involved so heroically," Cianfrocca said. According to the footage, Hunter tried to jockey her car into a position to escape, driving into a chair in front of the store before using the car to push people who were standing in front of her. Cianfrocca grabbed a 2-foot-tall cast iron bear that had been next to the chair and placed it on the ground in front of Hunter's car to prevent her from hitting the customers and fleeing. Hunter tried to drive over the bear several times, according to the footage, but was unable to do so. Cianfrocca kept shifting the bear's position as Hunter tried to turn around it.

Employee Judy Kehs ran out and tried to stab Hunter's tire with a pair of scissors, according to the footage, but was unable to pierce the rubber. Hunter stopped driving for a moment to argue with Cianfrocca, at one point waving to one of the video cameras. Then she got back in her car and ran into the bear a final time, dragging it along the parking lot before clearing it and fleeing a few seconds before police arrived.
She turned herself in to police yesterday and was issued a summons on charges of four counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon, shoplifting and malicious destruction of property.
Police decided not to detain her, according to Deputy Chief Robert Barker. He said she should be in court in four to six weeks.

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