WATCH: Three brave sisters pin down alleged restaurant break-and-enter suspect
They suffered minor injuries, including bites to hands, during the tussle caught on video
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Three sisters are being lauded by the Danforth community as heroes after they encountered a man in their family’s restaurant and instinctually captured and pinned him down until police arrived.
The Lorefice family live above their restaurant, Trecce, located at 1792 Danforth Ave., east of Coxwell Ave. On Tuesday around 3:30 a.m., the four daughters and their parents heard glass smashing downstairs and three of them — Lucy, 26, Sabrina, 22, and Adriana, 17 — went to investigate. But what they didn’t expect was to come face-to-face with one of two suspects who allegedly broke into what they considered “their home.”
“We saw the glass door was shattered,” Sabrina told the Sun Thursday. “We see a guy come out of the bottom half of the window. He charged at us, so we fought back.”
Sabrina said she and her sisters reacted on adrenaline and without any prior self-defence skills, put up their dukes and pinned the man to the ground, who continued to scratch and kick them.
“As we’re on the ground, he’s like, ‘I have a knife. I’m going to stab you,'” said Sabrina. “We don’t know what was going to happen because we didn’t know where his hands were, so quickly, we grabbed his hands and put them behind his back but as we grabbed them, he bit my hand and scratched Lucy on the neck.”
As the two women and teen were wrestling with the intruder, their other sister Nina, 29, called 911.
“They were screaming for help, ‘Help us, help us!'” said Sabrina.
The police arrived five minutes later, said Sabrina, and arrested the man.
The remarkable take-down was captured on the restaurant’s CCTV. In one clip, two people in dark clothing are seen approaching the restaurant.
“He really hurt us,” said Sabrina. “On my left hand, he left a mark, on my right, he bit me, but I took it away quickly.”
Lucy and Adriana both wound up with scratches, as well as bruises on their hands.
“He was very aggressive,” said Lucy. “He really wanted to get away so bad, kept on punching, kicking and scratching. When I went down, I was barefooted because I didn’t have a chance to put slippers or socks on. There was glass all over the floor. Him jumping on us brought us all off-balance. My feet are all scratched from the glass.”
Lucy said they were all overcome by instinct to protect their property.
“Someone came into our safe environment,” she said. “Yes, this is a restaurant, but it’s also our home. It was just a shocker. It was a violation.”
The sisters said after the fact, they discovered their cash register was smashed, but there was no money taken because they don’t leave cash in there overnight.
Toronto Police said Jesus Valverde, 52, of no fixed address, was charged with break-and-enter commit, possession of burglar tools, two counts of fail to comply probation, fail to comply release order and four counts of assault.
He appeared at College Park courts for a bail hearing on Jan. 12.
Toronto Police could not confirm late Thursday whether one suspect remains outstanding.
The restaurant, which serves pizza and fresh-cut pasta, has operated for 20 years without a break-in. Sabrina said theirs, like most foodservice places during the pandemic, have suffered and replacing the glass on their door is another low-blow. Insurance will cover, but that could mean their premiums increase.
The sisters said the community has been very supportive and someone has even started a GoFundMe to help the family out with clean-up costs.
“We’re still healing,” said Lucy.
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