Leicester Police Arrest Man In Walmart Purse-Snatching, Assaults
LEICESTER (CBS) -- Leicester Police arrested a man they say stole a woman's purse and attacked her and another person in a Walmart parking lot Wednesday.
Wilfredo Rivera, 31 of Worcester, is charged with unarmed robbery, larceny, assault with intenet to rob, and assault and battery on a person over 60.
Police said Rivera came up to the woman in the parking lot of a Walmart on Route 9 around 10 a.m., knocked her to the ground, and ran off with her purse.
As he ran away, another man tried to intervene--and police say Rivera attacked that man, too.
They said he then ran into the woods and took off his shirt.
Another witness, along with an off-duty officer from another department, tracked Rivera as he ran through the woods and through other people's yards, directing responding Leicester Police to him. They took him into custody not long after.
"The Leicester Police Department would like to thank the male who intervened during the incident and the witness who, along with the off duty police officer, provided responding officers with the exact location of the fleeing suspect," the department wrote in a post on their Facebook page. "All of you helped make this arrest possible."
Rivera is being held pending a dangerousness hearing next week in East Brookfield District Court.