The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

rv = ae TR SE Robbery fo "A Family Tradition for 132 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - S 7 McArthur sentenced to 14 years in jail Mitchiel "Micky" McArthur blazed his way into the psyche of Port Perry the night of Oct. 20, 1994. = On April 3, 1997, after a lengthy trial, a Jury of six men and six women found him guilty of 17 charges, including four of attempt murder. The same jury acquitted McArthur's younger half-brother Angus of the same 17 charges On Monday of this week, Dec. 14, more than four years later, McArthur was sent to prison for 14 1/2 years by Justice Harry LaForme. He rejected a Crown bid to have McArthur jailed as a dangerous offender for an indeterminate sentence and rejected the Crown's request for a life sentence. It was a mild, almost humid evening, Oct. 20, 1994, considering the time of year -- the kind of evening that brings people out of their homes for a walk, or to get in some shopping downtown or at the Port Perry Plaza just off Hwy. 7A. The plaza was busy with shoppers that evening when, just before 7:30, two men burst into the Bank of Montreal -- both masked and one armed with a heavy calibre handgun and the other with a vicious mili- tary style rifle. Immediately there was much shouting and commotion in the bank, and it suddenly hit the staff and handful of customers that this was indeed a robbery. McArthur did most of the shouting, and a lot of cursing. When manager Al Knight ventured out of his office to see what was going on, McArthur demanded he open the "treasury," a banking term meaning the inner vault. When Knight hesitated slightly, he was felled by a pistol bullet in the knee, fired by McArthur. Bank staff eventually got the "treasury" open and the pair fled with some $50,000 in a white sack resembling a pillow case. At least two people outside the bank saw the robbery occurring, and called Durham Police. Two cruisers immediately were dispatched to the scene, arriving vir- tually at the same time. In the marked cruiser, Constables. Warren Ellis and Mark McConkey arrived to see the two robbers making their way on foot towards the south end of the plaza. Det. Paul Mooy arrived in an un-marked dark grey police sedan. As Constables Ellis and McConkey were about to get out, shots rang our from the walkway between the Chinese Restaurant and the Canadian Tire. Ellis, still behind 'the wheel, was hit in the head with bullet fragments as a high-powered rifle slug smashed through the cruiser window; 0 i B Human Resources Developpement des Development Canada resources humaines Canada Looking for work? Collecting Employment Insurance? rever part of Perry's history This file picture shows a dazed and bleeding Const. Warren Ellis behind the wheel of his cruiser after he was hit in the head with bullet fragments while responding to the robbery call on Oct. 20, 1994. He has since returned to duty. McConkey was less lucky. He was hit on the left side of the face--the bullet creasing his jaw -- as he stepped from the cruiser. He went down on the pavement beside the cruiser door on the passenger side. Det. Mooy was able to get out of his car. His .38 police handgun drawn, he was tak- ing shelter behind a concrete pillar on the sidewalk about 30 feet from the gunman. A bullet slammed into his forearm and he slumped to the sidewalk in severe pain and shock. He never got a shot off at the two robbers. Evidence at the later trial indicated McArthur emptied an entire 30 round clip at the three officers and the pair made good their escape across the parking lot at the rear of Canadian Tire where they had stashed a couple of stolen bicycles. Across Hwy. 7A, some 200 yards away, realtor Debra-Ann Taylor was working late. One of the bullets fired by McArthur went through the office window and struck her in the shoulder, the bullet travelling down and stopping very close to her heart. She managed to get the attention of a co- learn how to market yourself to employers using the from Human Resources Development Canada HRDC may provide your next employer with a wage subsidy of up to 60% to leam more, come to a TWS information session When: Where: Mondays, 1:30pm Oshawa Human Resources Centre 78 Richmond St. W., Oshawa worker in another part of the building, and was rushed to hospital where doctors ini- tially had grave fears for her life. McArthur and his accomplice rode off on the stolen bicycles along the usually quiet streets of Apple Valley. They dumped the bikes beside a fence near Van Camp Contracting and continued on foot past Lake Scugog Lumber, across Hwy. 7A near the Masonic Lodge to Major Street where they smashed their way into a home by breaking through a rear patio door. When the elderly couple came home a short while later, they were confronted by the two masked gunmen who terrorized them with the weapons, and eventually forced the man to drive them in his VW camper van across Port Perry to the parking lot at the local hospital. The hospital was already bustling with frantic activity as the wounded victims were being brought in for initial treatment by teams of doctors and nurses in the emer- gency department. Walking through rear yards of homes that abut the parking lot at the hospital, the pair got into a getaway car and drove away. One of them dropped his balaclava- style mask in the back yard of one of the houses. He was later identified in court as Mick McArthur. By this time, downtown Port Perry and especially the area around the plaza resem- bled a war zone as heavily armed officers from police forces as far away as Metro and Peterborough responded to the alarm that five people had been shot in a bank hold-up. All vehicles around the plaza were checked by police -- roadblocks were set up at exits from the community; tracking dogs and helicopters were brought in to help in the desperate search. Police still didn't know if the armed gunmen were still hiding out in Port Perry, and residents were advised to go home and lock their doors and windows. Somehow, McArthur and his accomplice managed to elude police and slip out of town in the get- away car that had been parked in the west lot at the hospital. All that evening and though the night the search went on. A heavily armed squad of police with dogs on leash concentrated their efforts on a thickly wooded area on the east side of Highway 12, about four miles north of the village after there were reports of the getaway car in that vicinity. A helicopter hovered over the area, flooding the woods with powerful search-light. All to no avail. But police already had the big break they needed. Driving north on Simcoe Street (Oshawa Road) a Durham officer in his own vehicle responding to the emer- gency call spotted a reddish-orange Camaro make a U-turn in front of a police road- block set up at the Prince Albert road intersection. He followed the Camaro back into town, then lost it on some sidestreets before he drove on to the scene of the crimes at the plaza. But he jotted down the licence number. And that action probably broke the case for the police. Several hours later that plate number went through the police computer system and turned up the name Mitchiel McArthur, resident of Kingston and as the vernacular goes "known to police." By three in the morning Kingston police had McArthur's apartment under surveil- lance. He was seen arriving home, then leaving in the Camaro for a short while. Just before eight in the morning, a heavily armed squad of police surrounded the apartment building where McArthur lived with his common-law wife Margaret and her young daughter. Announcement The Wagg Funeral Home "McDermott-Panabaker Chapel" 1s pleased to announce the opening of a Genesis BEREAVEMENT RESOURCE CENTRE * A new resource for the community providing care for those mourning the loss of loved ones * A lending library of over 100 books and videos * Public education seminars and support groups For further information please call or visit The Genesis Bereavement Resource Cehtre at I WAGG FUNERAL HOME Mo Dermott-Panabaken Chapel 216 Queen St., Port Perry, Ontario L9L. 1B9 MYLES G. O'RIORDAN Funeral Director/Owner Res: (905) 985-0608 -- GENESIS BEREAVEMENT RESOURCE CENTRE (905) 985-2171 MARK K. FLETCHER Funeral Director/ Pre-Arrangement Counsellor