OGDEN, Utah -- Cindy Simone is about 5-feet tall and barely weighs 100 pounds, but that didn’t stop her from making a citizen’s arrest on Ogden’s 25th Street.
Simone took two men into custody Sunday morning; cellphone camera footage of the citizen's arrest is available at the bottom of this story.
"I told them I didn’t want to ruin their day, I knew they were watching their favorite football game," Simone said. "But they had to go to jail."
Simone said the two men stole a valuable watch bracelet from her friend’s antique store, Sock Monkey’n Around, on Sept. 16.
Store owner C.J. Bovee said the whole thing was captured on surveillance video.
“I was mad; I was hurt,” Bovee said.
So when she spotted the same two men in a bar next to her business Sunday morning, she called her friend Simone, a bail bondsman. Simone said she recruited four men to help her, and approached the two suspects at their table.
“I told them… I'm doing a citizens’ arrest on behalf of the state of Utah, the city of Ogden,” Simone said. “And you're coming with me until the officers pick you up.”
Simone said the two men surrendered without a fight, letting her secure their wrists with zip ties. Then Simone and Bovee had the two men sit in plastic chairs on the sidewalk until Ogden Police picked them up.
“We were very good to them; gave them water and a lot of lecturing,” Simone said. “We talked to them quite a bit. The court will be a lot harder than me. I'm a nice person. But this is family. This is family, and you don't mess with the family.”
Bovee said they treated the suspects well.
“We weren't treating them bad,” she said. “We were just holding them until police got here.”
But were the two women worried about approaching two men they suspected of stealing?
“Not with Cindy!” Bovee said. “She's my sister.”
“These are little thieves, I wasn't afraid of them,” Simone said. “They weren't going to hurt me or anything. They might run. I didn't want to chase them. So I got some guys who could... I just told them, ‘It's not nice to steal, and you're going to be in timeout for a while.'"
See below for footage of the citizen's arrest.
