Police Files

Police officers at Stations 1 and 5 worked in tandem to quickly catch an armed assault suspect last Friday, Const. Roberto Del Papa said.

A 21-year-old Greenfield Park resident was approached by the suspect while speaking to her boyfriend on her cellphone at a bus stop in front of John Abbott College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue at the corner of Maple Avenue and Lakeshore Road at 11 p.m.

He attacked her from behind, pushing her to the ground, strangling and punching her, said Del Papa. He asked her for a cigarette while he attacked, Del Papa added.

"She lost consciousness," Del Papa said, and the suspect ran away.

After her boyfriend called police, a Station 1 patrol car found her, and she gave a description of the suspect.

That was quickly put on the police band, with a Station 5 car spotting a suspect with that description at the intersection of St. Antoine and St. Jean Baptiste streets at the border of Dorval and Lachine. A bloody X-Acto knife was found on the suspect.

Police are advising locals to be careful after a young man was beaten up outside the Guzzo cinema on Sources Boulevard at around midnight last Saturday.

Const. Chantal Castonguay said he was attacked after parting with his friends following a film screening.

His friend's parents came to pick them up, but he was making his way to a bus stop when "about ten" youths began stalking him. Castonguay described them as a group of "Asian, dark-skinned and black" young men.

She said two of them then ran over, pushed him to the ground, and began kicking him, demanding his money and cell phone.

Nevertheless, the victim managed to escape, and the suspects fled after a nearby adult came to his rescue.

He was not badly hurt, and no Urgences-Santé unit was sent for him, Castonguay said.

Police are on the look-out for an English, black man, weighing around 174 pounds and measuring 5 feet 8 inches, last seen wearing a black hoodie, after a suspect with such a description was witnessed attempting to snatch a purse last Saturday night.

It happened on the corner of Drake Street and St. John Boulevard in Pointe Claire at about 9:45 p.m., when a 35 year-old woman was making her way back home from grocery-shopping.

She said she was caught by surprise by someone attempting to grab her purse from behind.

When she turned around to face her sneaky assailant, she was punched in the face.

However, the suspect fled without anything in his hands once two witnesses came to the woman's rescue.