Police officers dressed as Santa Claus and his elf were used to bag the bad guys at a busy Riverside, Calif., shopping center.
In one incident last week, a festively dressed Riverside Police Department undercover cop and detective sprang into action when they saw three men in the process of stealing a Honda CR-V in the parking lot, the department’s Facebook page noted.
Police video of the incident, posted on YouTube, showed the elf-dressed officer ordering one of the suspects to get on his knees at gunpoint.
A second suspect resisted arrest, before the detective dressed as Santa rushed over to help.
"Get him Santa," a voice off-camera can be heard yelling as the detective grabbed the suspect from behind and forced him on the ground.
One of the suspects was identified and later released and the second was arrested for possession of illegal drugs and resisting arrest, police said. A third suspect was able to drive away in the SUV and abandoned it nearby. He wasn’t immediately arrested.
The police were at the shopping center as part of a program to crackdown on retail theft. The operation was dubbed "Santa Intervention."
They arrested three people, including a woman, who allegedly walked out of the store with a cart full of merchandise and a man accused of stealing expensive Lego sets worth $1,000, police said.
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