Min­utes af­ter steal­ing a car be­long­ing to a li­cens­ing of­fi­cer, who had stopped to pur­chase fruits in Ch­agua­nas on Mon­day af­ter­noon, a ban­dit was held af­ter he crashed the ve­hi­cle a short dis­tance away.

Po­lice said the 39-year-old of­fi­cer of Mon­trose, Ch­agua­nas, was on the way home around 4 pm when he stopped along Jern­ing­ham Rail­way Road near a fruit stall at the cor­ner of En­deav­our Road Ex­ten­sion.

Po­lice said as the man col­lect­ed his pur­chas­es and wait­ed to cross the road, he looked up to see his car, which he had left idling, be­ing dri­ven away. Sec­onds lat­er, a loud crash was heard, and he saw the car had col­lid­ed with a white Lancer EX. A man of East In­di­an de­scent was seen run­ning away from the scene.

How­ev­er, the ban­dit was held by passers-by who con­tact­ed the po­lice. Of­fi­cers took the man in­to cus­tody and lat­er iden­ti­fied him as a 20 year old from Jern­ing­ham Junc­tion, Cunu­pia. —An­na-Lisa Paul