Police say churchgoers foiled masked robber

Man, 45, subdued at Hyannis service

A Hyannis man was in court yesterday, one day after members of a Hyannis congregation overwhelmed him and stopped his attempt to rob them masked and with a fake gun, according to Barnstable police.

The man was identified by police as 45-year-old Clyde Bridges. Police said in a press release that Bridges went to the Hyannis Foursquare Portuguese Church on Main Street around 9 p.m. Sunday, when a service was being held.

Police said they were told that "parishioners from the church were holding the suspect on the ground and that he was armed with a handgun." Members of the church had tackled Bridges and ripped a black knit hat off his face, police said.

Bridges was taken into custody and police learned that what had been thought to be a gun was a cigarette lighter shaped like a derringer.

Lucas Vieira, 24, whose father, Mario, is the church's pastor, was in the back of the church when the masked man walked up to the glass door and started speaking to another parishioner.

"I saw that he was using a black mask showing only the eyes," Lucas Vieira said. "When he turned to me, he was carrying this little gun. I didn't know if it was real or not."

Vieira was not taking any chances with the church full of parishioners, about 20 of them children, he said. So he went outside the door to stop the man, Viera said.

"I grabbed him, I threw him on the ground, and then a couple more guys came from the church and helped me out, and probably about three or four minutes later the police came and got him."

Vieira said someone in the back of the church reported having seen the suspect leave money in the collection plate earlier in the service before leaving and returning with the fake gun.

"The other guy said he was asking for money, but we don't know if it was his money that he gave as a donation for the church, of if it was other money he was trying to dupe from the guy," he said.

"In the church, you never imagine something like that would happen in the middle of the service," he said.

Police charged Bridges with armed robbery while masked and also later charged him in the armed robbery of a pizza delivery man on May 8. "At that time, a Papa John's delivery man was robbed of an undetermined amount of money while making a delivery in Hyannis," police said.

Bridges was arraigned yesterday in Barnstable District Court, where he pleaded not guilty to armed robbery charges. Bail was set at $200,000 cash, according to a spokesman for Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe.