A group of Met Police officers were on holiday when they spotted a man behaving suspiciously inside a restaurant – they chased and detained the thief in Barcelona, Spain
Several off-duty police officers halted a stag do to stop a suspected thief from running away with stolen goods from a restaurant.
Sergeant Eren Emin, 30, based in Enfield, north London, said his pals were in the middle of celebrating when they spotted a man jump over the counter in the venue. He said the man started to “ransack the tills and take electrical goods” including iPhones and iPads in Barcelona.
The Met Police officers hopped up and “instantly gave chase” after the suspect fled the restaurant. They ran around 50m (165ft) before they caught up with him. Speaking about the incident, he said: “I’m a police officer. It’s my job. Wherever we are, whether in Spain, it doesn’t matter, I have to do what’s right.
“As soon as he saw me he started running and obviously I didn’t have a chance to think, ‘Oh, wait, I’m not a police officer, and I’m not in the UK, I’m in Spain’. I’m a nobody here, but to be honest, that didn’t even cross my mind. It was a case of just getting him stopped.”
The officers managed to retrieve the items and took the suspect back to the restaurant as they waited for local police to arrive. Emin said staff were “shocked” when they got up and immediately sprinted after the man, reports BBC. He continued: “As soon as they arrived, one of my colleagues informed them that we were all police officers and then it was high fives all around, is how I would describe it.” The quick-thinking holidaymaker said there is no job he would rather do than policing and added that the incident was second nature to him.
The Mirror previously reported how two hero off-duty police officers saved a father’s life after he suffered a cardiac arrest at the wheel of his car. John Walker, 69, was pulled unconscious from his car and positioned into the middle of a busy road where lifesaving CPR was performed by the strangers last year.
His wife Jean alerted a man, who happened to be off-duty Detective Constable Paddy Little, of Northumbria Police, who was on a bike ride with his son. Two other heroes, ran over to help John; Police Constable Jonathan Buckster, of Durham Constabulary, and Sarah, a nurse at Sunderland Royal Hospital, who were both also off duty at the time.
John, who is a retired housing manager, said: “I just feel very lucky that Paddy, Jonathan and Sarah were there to help me – and to all of the emergency services who arrived so quickly and were absolutely fantastic with me and Jean. We are so grateful for their amazing support and I can’t thank them enough for saving my life. Never will I forget them.
