FREDERIC SERRE
The 1510 West
As Christmas shopping goes into its final busy stretch this week, Montreal police are urging West Islanders to be extra vigilant when parking their cars in shopping centres, particularly Fairview Pointe Claire and surrounding malls.
The warning comes in the wake of an incident on the morning of Dec. 10, when an elderly woman had her purse stolen from her car after she was distracted by a woman asking for help in the parking lot of the Colonnades Pointe Claire shopping centre at St. Jean Boulevard, just north of Brunswick Boulevard.
“She had an eye appointment in the medical building,” said her daughter, Michèle Lesage. “After her appointment, she returned to her car, turned the engine on and was ready to leave when a woman (approached her car) and started shouting out to her.”
Lesage said her mother didn’t understand what the woman was saying, and “the woman kept insisting by tapping on her window as if wanting to show my mom something. My mom thought that the woman had seen someone scratch her car.”
According to Lesage, that’s when her mother got out of the car to talk to the woman, who lured her to her vehicle.
“She showed her some money on the ground,” Lesage said. “My mom told her it wasn’t hers and told the woman to keep it. When she got back into her car, she then realized that her purse was stolen. The woman distracted her while her partner stole the purse.”
Lesage says she is relieved that her mother was not physically hurt. She and her mother met with police to file a report. An investigation is currently under way.
The incident comes in the wake of a special report last month by the Journal de Montréal that revealed that the Fairview Pointe Claire parking lot is the most popular location for thieves on the island of Montreal, making it the car theft capital of Quebec, with data showing that 185 cars have been reported stolen from the parking in the last year, which means one car stolen every two days.
The vehicle thefts at Fairview are even higher than at Trudeau Airport in Dorval, where 126 thefts have been recorded in the last year.