Just before 5 p.m. last Friday, when it was still light outside, four masked men were caught on surveillance camera bursting into a Port Credit store called Pure10.
The video shows the four men appear to push aside an employee before he leaves. The thieves then appear to rummage through racks of high-end clothing before making off with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
The dramatic surveillance video of the robbery, shared with Global News, and with some posted to the store’s social media page, captures the shop owner unlocking the door of the Lakeshore Road East shop from the inside for a man wearing a red hoodie and a medical mask covering the bottom half of his face.
“I saw most of his face, so I didn’t think much of it,” James Latini, the owner of Pure10 told Global News.
Latini says when he saw three other masked men come around the corner, behind the first man, he tried to stop all four from entering. But unable to shut them out, Latini decided to leave and locked the suspects in the store as he ran to a business next door to call police. He says he had left his cell phone on the desk inside his shop.
“I ran outside. I locked them inside the store, not expecting them to break through the glass — which is what they did. They had an axe on them. They smashed through the glass, they got away. It was quick. In and out,” Latini said.
Peel Regional Police confirm that the robbery bureau is now investigating the incident. Detectives are also looking into whether the same four men are responsible for a robbery at a cellphone store at Square One Mall just two hours later. That robbery, also caught on video surveillance, and posted to social media, appears to show suspects wearing the same clothing as the men in the Pure10 robbery and making off with bags of stolen goods.
Latini, who is now adding more security cameras and waiting on new glass to replace his broken window, which is now boarded up, said he is shocked by how young the suspects looked. “They’re probably still in high school. It’s so crazy that these kids, at such a young age, are doing crimes like this. So bold,” Latini said.
On Nov. 9, during the overnight hours, Latini said there was also an attempted break-in at Pure10. In that case, video surveillance captured four men trying to gain entry through the back door of the business. The suspects arrived in a white panel van, which Latini said police told him was stolen.
Anyone with information that can help investigators, or who recognizes the suspects, is asked to call Peel Regional police or Crimestoppers.