Police officers often took hours to respond to David Chen’s calls when shoplifters were caught at his Chinatown store.

When they arrived, the thieves would usually leave with just a warning. And despite installing $30,000 worth of security cameras, the criminals kept getting away.

“To us it’s a fairly big problem,” Chen testified Thursday at his trial in which he faces charges of forcibly confining and assaulting a shoplifter in May 2009.

“It happens a lot,” said the 37-year-old father of two, who works nearly 20 hours a day, making $35,000 a year, running the Lucky Moose Food Market on Dundas St. W.

Defence lawyer Peter Lindsay painted his client as an honest, hard-working store owner who was forced to take matters into his own hands when a thief returned to his store to steal for the second time in an hour.

Anthony Bennett, a career criminal with 43 convictions over 30 years, testified on Wednesday.

He stole a rack of flowers from Chen, then returned to take some more. Chen confronted Bennett, asking him to pay for what he took.

“Go f--- yourself, Chinese,” Bennett said, among other racist, unprintable things, Chen testified.

Bennett fled and Chen chased after him. Minutes later, Bennett was tied up in the back of a white delivery van.

The van was just down the street from the Lucky Moose when police pulled it over.

Qing Li and Jie Chen, employees of the Lucky Moose, were also in the van. Li was in the driver’s seat, while Jie Chen was in the back holding Bennett down.

Chen said the pair helped him make a citizen’s arrest. They planned to hold Bennett at the store while they called police.

They also share the same charges as Chen, and sat stoically in court as he testified.

In his testimony, Bennett said he feared for his life when the men tied him up and threw him in the van.

“I didn’t know what they were going to do with me,” the 52-year-old said, during his agitated and argumentative testimony.

However, he admitted that only his thumb was injured in the incident.

“If I did not chase after him then my property would continue to be stolen by other people,” Chen told the court Thursday.

However, the Crown maintains the men used excessive force, and that Bennett had not been caught in a criminal act when the citizen’s arrest was made.

According to the law, a citizen’s arrest can only be made when someone is caught red-handed.

Prosecutor Eugene McDermott suggested that Chen and the others intended to take Bennett somewhere to beat him up, when the police intervened.

“Isn’t that true?” McDermott asked in his cross-examination.

“No,” Chen replied curtly, through a Cantonese interpreter.

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Either way, many supporters view Chen as vigilante who refused to put up with petty thievery.

In light of the case, two Toronto MPs, Liberal Joe Volpe and NDPer Olivia Chow, have tabled private member’s bills that would change the citizen’s arrest law to allow for detention within a reasonable time frame after a crime is committed.

The trial continues next Tuesday.

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