AMERICAN KEEPS THIEF FROM STEALING THE MAGNA CARTA

An American tourist from Louisiana was the guy who tackled a hammer-wielding thief who tried to steal the Magna Carta at Salisbury Cathedral last week. (* What is the Magna Carta? It’s the 1215 charter that established the principle that the king is subject to the law. It is considered the founding document of English law and civil liberties and influenced the creation of the U.S. Constitution.) Matt Delcambre, of Little Iberia, Louisiana, and his wife Alexis were sightseeing in the southwestern English city when the man tried to shatter the glass encasing the precious manuscript after a fire alarm was set off in the building. The document was protected by two layers of thick glass, and the thief gave up and tried to escape. Amid the confusion, Delcambre grabbed the suspect as he fled. Delcambre, the director for the Center for Business & Information Technologies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said he held him on the ground until security could arrive. “I just had to stop him,” the 56-year-old said. His wife Alexis added, “Back home he would have been hog-tied on the ground.”
* Who ya gonna call to save your precious documents? America, baby!
* Mr. Delcambre will be played by Nicolas Cage in the movie, National Lampoon’s National Treasure 3: European Vacation.