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Stephen Sales, 42, of Wayne was drunk and holding a beer can when he approached New Year's Eve diners at their tables at the Hamburg Turnpike restaurant, pointed at their children and threatened to kill them, Detective Capt. Dan Daly said.
Officers rushed there and seized Sales, who’d previously been banned from the establishment and has a history of similar behavior, the captain said.
Sales has become a frightening result of New Jersey’s bail reform law. Wayne police have arrested him nearly a dozen times over just the past six months for crimes that include aggravated assault on police and shoplifting, records show.
Multiple businesses in town have also banned him for threatening and unruly behavior, Daly noted.
Police charged Sales this time with making terroristic threats and defiant trespassing, then sent him once again to the Passaic County Jail.
And once again a judge released him under New Jersey’s bail reform law, records show.
Trouble quickly followed.
Police were called to the township Violations Bureau on Jan. 10 after Sales showed up drunk and belligerent, Daly said. They ordered him to leave and gave him the necessary information to check on an upcoming hearing on his cellphone, the captain said.
Officers watched as Sales walked away from town hall, paused at Wayne Valley High School, then opened his pants and urinated on the front lawn while facing the school, Daly said.
“It was still daylight and students were still present,” he said.
Sales was immediately arrested and charged with lewdness and disorderly conduct.
He was sent to the Passaic County Jail – only this time a judge refused to grant his release.
Sales was transferred last Friday to the Bergen County Jail, where he remained on Wednesday, Jan. 25, pending further court action.
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