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The search began after Derrick Anthony Younger, 28, ran from a Route 46 traffic stop near Route 23 around midnight.
Wayne Police Officer Wayne Bush, who stopped Younger, chased him on foot to the Ramada Inn.
A Passaic County Sheriff's SWAT unit was summoned in case of a possible standoff.
Although authorities initially suspected that Younger was in Room 228, he'd actually gone to the roof.
After a SWAT robot found the room empty, police used a thermal imaging camera that led them to the roof.
Younger was arrested without incident around 5 a.m.
He was taken to Wayne police headquarters, where he was processed on local charges before being turned over to Essex County authorities.
A Superior Court jury in Newark convicted Younger in absentia for eluding while on probation for a previous crime, records show. In a separate case, he pleaded guilty the following year to cocaine possession with the intent to distribute it and employing a juvenile in the commission of a drug crime.
In the eluding case, records show, an East Orange police sergeant chased Younger after he backed up an entire block, then drove through a series of lights and stops signs onto westbound Route 280, where he cut his lights and began to weave in and out of traffic.
The sergeant terminated the pursuit, after which the Toyota Supra swerved and hit a curb, bending the front front wheel and snapping the axle.
The sergeant pulled up alongside the disabled vehicle, blocking the driver's side door, drew his service weapon and took Younger into custody.
Younger spent several years in state prison as a result of both convictions.
Among the agencies involved in Tuesday morning's capture were police from Little Falls, Totowa, Cedar Grove and Fairfield, as well as the New Jersey State Police Aviation Bureau (helicopter).
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ALSO SEE: A massive manhunt ended Tuesday afternoon when police captured a man who they said robbed a FedEx delivery driver in Hackensack and fled by jumping into a creek.
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