A man was arrested last Wednesday for stealing a pair of training shoes from a shop in Rua de São Domingos, according to a statement of the Public Security Police (PSP) on Saturday.
The suspect, in his fifties, is from the mainland.
According to the statement, a female sales assistant of the shop reported to the police last Wednesday that a man stole a pair of sneakers worth 1,100 patacas. She told the police that the man went to the shop and bought a pair of training shoes last Tuesday. After trying them on, the man bought them and asked her if he could wear the shoes immediately. The assistant told him that he could wear them but they could not be returned if they were already worn by the customer. The man then left the shop.
The statement said that the man returned to the shop the next day and told the sales assistant that the trainers he bought the day before did not fit him and asked to replace them. The assistant told him that the shoes could not be returned after they had been worn. The man then asked to try on another pair of trainers and told the assistant that they fit him, and he asked again to replace the ones he had bought on the previous day with the new ones. She told him again that he could not replace a new pair of shoes with the ones which he already had worn. The man suddenly became emotional and left the shop wearing the new pair of sneakers, leaving the pair that he had bought previously at the shop.
According to the statement, the Public Security Police scrutinised the CCTV footage of the shop as well as the nearby area and identified the suspect who was arrested later that day in Rua do Bispo Enes in the Inner Harbour area near Ponte 16. Under questioning, the suspect admitted to committing the crime, claiming that it was because the sales assistant refused to replace the new trainers with the ones that he had bought the day before so he left the shop wearing the new ones because he was angry.
The suspect has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a theft charge, according to the statement.
