Two good Samaritans stopped a shoplifting caper in Connecticut during a wild melee with a 34-year-old woman who allegedly swung a large knife at one man and bit the other, the state police said Tuesday.
The incident unfolded in the parking lot of a Walmart store in Putnam, near the Massachusetts and Rhode Island borders, when an unidentified man ran out pushing a cart of merchandise around 2:30 p.m. Friday.
Someone shouted that he was a shoplifter and a bystander ran after him as another hopped into his vehicle and also gave chase, police said.
The second man caught up with the thief and used his car to block a late model Chevy Tahoe into which the shoplifter and a woman were allegedly loading the stolen goods.
When the driver realized the Tahoe was running, he got in and removed the key, at which point the woman — identified as Contessa Vayo of Brooklyn, Connecticut — entered from the passenger side and allegedly swung a knife at him, police said.
The man ran off with the key and was chased by Vayo, who then allegedly hopped into the man's vehicle, which he left running, and began driving it erratically through the parking lot.
The owner chased after her and managed to open the front passenger door and was tussling with Vayo when a third man came over, opened the driver's door, stepped on the brake and shifted the transmission into park, police said.
The owner then clobbered Vayo, allowing the other man to pull her out and onto the ground during a struggle in which she allegedly bit his arm.
Troopers arrived and arrested Vayo but the male shoplifter disappeared during the chaos and was being sought, police said.
Vayo was charged with three counts of first-degree threatening, first-degree larceny, first-degree robbery and 11 related offenses, according to online court records.
She was being held Tuesday in the York Correctional Facility in East Lyme on $75,000 bond in the Wal-Mart case and $10,000 bond in an earlier, unrelated drug case for which allegedly failed to appear in court.
Contact information for her defense lawyer wasn't immediately available.
A previous version of this article misstated where Vayo lives. She is from Brooklyn, Conn. and not Brooklyn, N.Y.
