SandyMaloneEdmonton, Alberta, CANADA – Surveillance video captured a couple of thieves as they took extreme measures in their attempted escape from a convenience store on June 25, after they were caught trying to buy a can of soda using a stolen credit card (video below).
“By the time the couple left the store, they had lost a shirt and a shoe, gained a deep understanding of the store’s layout, and earned themselves a smorgasbord of charges,” according to Deadspin.
Police responded to the King Street Reddi Mart in Spruce Grove after the store manager called police to report that 28-year-old Richard Pariseau and 29-year-old Brittany Burke had used a suspected stolen credit card, Newsweek reported.
In the surveillance video, which had no audio, an officer can be seen talking to the couple inside the door of the store. Initially, Pariseau appeared to be compliant, and put his hands up in the air.
But then he stepped behind Burke, putting her between himself and the officer, the video showed.
“As the RCMP member attempted to detain both suspects, the male pushed the female suspect at the officer,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) spokesperson Constable Shelley Nasheim told Newsweek.
A shoving match ensued, with Burke caught between Pariseau and the officer. Then the video showed they all crashed to the ground with the officer on the bottom, underneath the struggling couple.
At that point, store owner Paul Chauhan grabbed Pariseau from behind, and attempted to pull him off the pile of bodies.
Pariseau broke away from Chauhan and made a break for the exit door in the back of the store. But when he got to it, he found it was locked, and he could not get out.
So he ran back into the store, but instead of heading for the front door which was blocked by Chauhan and Burke, Pariseau dashed down an aisle and began grabbing bags of sunflowers seeds, as if he were going to throw them at the officer pursuing him, the video showed.
That’s when the officer drew his stun gun and pointed it at Pariseau, which appeared to make him rethink the sunflower seed projectile in his hand.
The video showed he dropped his edible missiles to the ground as the officer approached, and went to the floor, laying briefly on his stomach.
But when the officer reached for his left wrist, Pariseau jumped back to his feet, as if he were going to make an attempt to get away.
Meanwhile, Burke approached the officer from the rear, acting horrified that the officer has a weapon drawn on her partner-in-crime. The officer pointed, directing Burke to back away from him, and she complied.
That’s when the video showed Pariseau lunged at the officer, who deployed his stun gun and took the brazen suspect to the ground.
While Pariseau twitched on the ground, Burke made a dash away from the store owner who was blocking the door, and headed for the back of the store, following Pariseau’s previously failed escape route.
That’s when Pariseau recovered from being zapped. First, he latched onto the officer’s leg. The he jumped up and tried to escape again.
The officer caught Pariseau by the cash register, but was unable to subdue him. The store owner got into the mix again as the struggle moved into the threshold of the store’s door, the video showed.
Eventually, the officer was able to pin Pariseau down, but the video showed the suspect continued to struggle.
In the meantime, video showed Burke entered the storeroom in the back of the business, and did not even attempt to get out through the back door.
Instead, she climbed a step stool that was positioned right next to the room surveillance camera, and climbed up and into the ceiling of the store.
Burke tried to crawl through the space above the store’s dropped ceiling to exit at some unknown point, but she was not at all successful.
All of a sudden, the video showed ceiling tiles began falling into the aisles of the store, and then Burke fell through the ceiling and landed on a display shelf.
She got right back up, dusted herself off, and headed toward the back of the store, but that was when the officer’s backup arrived in the form of two more cops.
The video showed Burke as she turned and put her hands up in the air, then got to the ground as officers approached.
Officers handcuffed Burke and led her out of the store as several more officers assisted the first officer in subduing and handcuffing Pariseau, who continued to resist throughout the entire arrest.
Pariseau and Burke were charged with using a stolen credit card, resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, attempting to disarm a police officer, and resisting arrest from someone aiding the police.
Afterward, RCMP praised the store owner’s efforts to help the officer, and said Chauhan “provided valuable assistance to the responding RCMP member which was instrumental in helping with the apprehension of both suspects,” Newsweek reported.
Watch the determined couple repeatedly try to escape the convenience store in the video below: