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The security officer grabbed Michael Thomas after he left the Garden State Plaza store yesterday with five Nike fuel bands worth $149 each, Detective Sgt. Robert T. Von Schalscha told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
“They got into a struggle, and the officer held onto him until help began to arrive,” Von Schalscha said. “He let go to handcuff him and the guy took off.
“But they quickly grabbed him again, cuffed him and brought him out the service corridor, where our officers were waiting.”
At that point, it was a shoplifting.
However, Thomas head-butted the officer who grabbed him — landing a second-degree robbery charge in the process, Von Schalscha said.
Thomas was sitting on the curb moments later when he went limp, apparently because of a medical condition, the sergeant said.
He was taken to Bergen Regional Medical Center and, later, to the Bergen County Jail, where he was being held on $10,000 bail.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy Paramus Police Department
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