Off-Duty Officer Stops Purse Snatching While At Dinner

HINGHAM (CBS) - Off-duty Duxbury police officer Mike Bolze was having dinner with his wife when he ended up foiling a purse snatching attempt.

Bolze was at Plaza Azteca in Hingham on January 11, when he saw a man approach a table occupied by a group of women. He then saw the man reach into a coat hung on the back of one woman's chair and take her purse from the pocket.

Bolze pursued the fleeing man into the parking lot, identifying himself as a police officer. The man jumped into the passenger side of a waiting vehicle, and the vehicle fled, nearly striking several passengers as it escaped.

As the suspect fled he dropped the purse. Bolze returned the purse, intact, to its owner, to the applause of diners in the restaurant.

The suspects fled in a late-model, black, Cadillac Escalade, which was a rental vehicle. The Hingham Police Department is investigating.