A Timmins reptile store owner is facing assault-related charges after police say he confronted and injured a man who had smashed the business’s storefront window.
The local police are using the incident to tell the public not to pursue people suspected of committing crimes, saying such situations can quickly turn violent.
“Our primary concern is always public safety,” said Timmins Police Service communications coordinator Michelle St. Louis.
“We understand the instinct to protect your property or your business. We strongly discourage anyone from pursuing or confronting a suspect. We wouldn’t want anything to turn violent or see loss of life.”
Officers responded around 11 a.m. ET on June 26 to a report that an individual had damaged a window at a local business before leaving the area on foot, according to a news release by police.
The business owner followed the suspect and confronted him with a machete, leaving him with “quite a few injuries to the arms and legs,” said St. Louis.
The injuries were not life-threatenting and the man was taken to hospital.
The business owner is now facing charges of aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm.
The individual who smashed the window is also facing a charge of mischief under $5,000.
Owner says he thought reptile had been taken
Robert Boucher, owner of Aquatics and Exotics, said he ran outside after his wife alerted him that someone had smashed the store’s front window.
He said his first concern was for one of the reptiles displayed near the window because during a previous break-in a few of his animals were killed.
“I saw that the window was smashed. My lizard was gone and I followed the individual,” Boucher said. “He had a large padlock on the end of a rope and he swung and smashed our window right where [the lizard] was sitting trying to kill her.”
He said when he couldn’t find his beloved Australian frilled dragon, he believed the animal had been taken.
“I did not think he was just doing vandalism. I believed that he had my reptile, so I chased him down,” he said.
“The whole street was filled with people and then when I came outside, everybody pointed to him and he was smashing the vehicles in the parking lot next door. When I confronted him, he was still in the middle of smashing stuff,” he said.
Boucher said the lizard escaped its enclosure during the incident, and he later found it in the store unharmed.
Boucher operates several social media accounts under the name “reptile Rob” and has been building an online following. He has over 15,000 followers on his TikTok account, where he livestreams everyday.
Several posts have been made about the incident, and while some have commented criticizing Boucher’s behaviour, many are supporting his actions.
A local window supplier has since replaced the smashed glass free of charge.
‘People are trying to break in every night’
Boucher said he and his wife have been sleeping in shifts in their home located above their downtown business because of repeated break-ins and attempted break-ins.
He said the business has been targeted several times over the past few years, including an armed robbery in June 2025.
“Me and my wife were taken prisoner by three men with machetes and our home was robbed in front of us,” Boucher said.
One man was charged in connection to that break-in about three months after the incident.
CBC News reached out to Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer Alison Craig for her thoughts on the incident.
While she believes Boucher’s reaction was understandable given the repeated break-ins and the trauma of those previous incidents, the law places limits on how far someone can go to protect their property, Craig said.
“The law does not allow vigilante justice or to act in retribution,” she said.
She said that if Boucher genuinely believed the man had taken his lizard, that could be legally relevant because property owners are entitled to use reasonable force to prevent someone from taking or damaging their property.
“What the law says is that the act has to be reasonable in the circumstances,” Craig said.
“What is reasonable will depend on what the circumstances of each case are, which is why I pause. I’m not sure a machete attack is necessarily reasonable.”
Craig explained there’s an important distinction between interrupting a crime in progress and chasing someone after the immediate threat has passed.
“I think [Boucher would] be on much better footing if he was interrupting a break and entering rather than trying to stop him from taking a lizard,” she said.
Timmins police discouraging ‘anyone from pursuing or confronting a suspect’
Boucher said he doesn’t believe the Timmins police are doing enough to protect businesses in the downtown core.
According to Boucher, he requested help from police in the weeks leading up to this latest incident by sending videos showing suspicious activity around the property.
“Literally our emails were ‘please help, please help,’ that was the subject of our emails. We were sending video after video after video saying people are trying to break in every night,” he said.
In response to Boucher’s criticism that police did not act upon the videos he sent, St. Louis said he was directly emailing an officer who was off duty or on vacation and was not monitoring her work email.
This officer had been investigating previous incidents involving the business, prior to the installation of security cameras. The investigations were completed and there wasn’t enough evidence to identify a suspect, St. Louis said.
“Following that, the business owner continued to email the investigating officer with various video clips, including footage of the officer herself, as well as individuals who appeared to be acting suspiciously around the property but were not actively committing criminal offences,” St. Louis said.
She said people should report incidents by calling 911 or the non-emergency reporting system rather than emailing individual officers so reports can be assessed and assigned regardless of an officer’s schedule.
‘It’s not worth the risk’
Boucher said the business has taken a financial hit because of all the break-ins.
“Our finances are extremely low from the many robberies we’ve had. I don’t know what to do. People are like, ‘get the bars on the windows.’ I’m like, ‘I can’t afford that.’”
St. Louis said while she understands the frustration of business owners who repeatedly become victims of crime, it’s not worth the risk of confrontation that could end in serious injury or death.
“The safest course of action is to call police immediately, providing timely information, giving as much detail as you can to allow officers to respond and assess the situation and investigate, while significantly reducing the risk of someone being seriously injured,” she said.
Boucher is set to appear in court on July 28.
Craig said courts will consider whether there were reasonable alternatives available before someone resorted to force.
“I think arguably he should have perhaps called the police and said, ‘this guy just broke my window. He has my lizard… Can you please come help?’ I think that would have been probably the more apt response rather than taking it into his own hands,” she said.
“You can defend your property, but not at all costs.”.
