PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A Providence city councilwoman told the police that three young men grabbed her purse and shoved her outside a yard sale in her district Saturday morning.
Carmen Castillo, 51, who represents the city's Ninth Ward in Elmwood, told the police that she was browsing at a yard sale on Huntington Avenue and Madison Street, when a young man grabbed her purse out of her vehicle, according to a police report.
Castillo grabbed her purse, but the young man shoved her and ran, the report said. A father and son tried to stop the thief, but he and two accomplices assaulted the father and fled.
Witnesses chased the thieves into a cemetery on Elmwood Avenue, where the young men jumped a fence and dropped a North Face backpack that held bottles of soda, according to the police.
Castillo's purse was later found -- minus $400 and a credit card, according to a police report.