A chronic thief who was beaten up after he was caught trying to steal a car outside an inner-city grocery store is suing staff, arguing he was left with life-altering injuries.
“The amount of force used against him was far in excess of what was necessary to execute a citizen’s arrest or detain him pending the arrival of law enforcement personnel,” 36-year-old Michael Prince alleged in a statement of claim filed earlier this month by his lawyer in the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench.
According to defence submissions heard last summer at his sentencing for a series of unrelated thefts, Prince was arrested in connection to the incident Feb. 26, 2024, after police followed a blood trail to the door of his Bannatyne Avenue home.
In his statement of claim, Prince says he was at Dino’s Grocery Mart on Isabel Street when he stole a jacket containing a wallet and car key fob and went home.
“Prince says that after about 30 minutes, he decided to return to the store to steal the vehicle associated with the key fob,” the court papers say.
When he arrived, Prince found the car boxed in by two other vehicles. Prince entered the car, triggering its alarm, attracting the attention of eight or nine store staff who pulled Prince from the vehicle and “punched, kicked and hit him repeatedly” and struck him with a hammer, alleges the statement of claim.
“Prince says he has no memory of fleeing the scene of the assault until he found himself running about a block away from the scene,” it reads.
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Author: Marty Kaufmann
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