Taking back the street

Citizen Arrest !

Two of the suspects brought to the police lock-up

It was a classic example of angry residents taking back the street when they had had enough of robbery and theft cases happening in their own neighbourhood that they decided to take action instead of waiting for the police to make arrest.

On Thursday night citizen arrest action six persons, including a teenager, were arrested on suspicion of attempted house breaking and intimidation.

The incident began at Jalan Semaba in Kuching around 7.15pm when a resident at Taman Kim Lee spotted an unknown man in the compound of his neighbour's unoccupied house and immediately shouted at him.

The suspect, who was wearing a red jacket, took off into a nearby secondary jungle as the resident and several other neighbours went after him.

The group patrolled the surrounding area for over an hour but failed to locate the suspect, who had apparently escaped, and were about to call it quits when a van with three men inside drove up to them.

The trio, who were armed with a wooden club, angrily approached the residents and threatened to harm them for falsely accusing the suspect, who happened to be their friend, of attempted house breaking.

The residents, however, refused to be intimidated and fought back, sending the trio fleeing to their house, which turned out to be in the same housing area.

It was then the residents alerted the police who arrived at the scene to arrest the three men, aged between 26 and 40 years old, at around 8.30pm.

A check of the van found that it had been fitted with false registration plates and the trio were sent to the lockup pending further investigation.

Following the incident, the residents left the Simpang Tiga police station after lodging a report and headed to a coffee shop at Jalan Semaba around 1.45am where they noticed the earlier prime suspect, who was still wearing his red jacket, sitting not far away with two other men and a woman.

Realising he had been spotted, the suspect and his friends fled in a vehicle again with residents in hot pursuit in their own vehicles.

The chase ended at Haji Baki village when residents blocked off the car and apprehended the suspect along with one of his male friend. Another friend and a girl in the vehicle fled the scene on foot.

The police went to the scene and arrested the duo, who are both in their 20s, and brought them to the police station for questioning.

Based on information gathered, patrol officers went back to Haji Baki and arrested a 17-year-old boy who was one of the two who fled earlier.