He stole 2 candy bars, then bit a store clerk and broke another's rib, documents say

TACOMA, Wash. — He set out to steal a couple of candy bars from a Tacoma convenience store Sunday night, Pierce County prosecutors say.

But when he was confronted, he lashed out, biting one clerk, throwing another to the floor and repeatedly punching a third in the head before threatening to kill the employees, according to charging documents.

The 26-year-old Lakewood man was arraigned Monday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court on charges of first-degree robbery and felony harassment. His bail was set at $20,000.

According to charging documents:

The Lakewood man came into the convenience store at the corner of South 19th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way on Sunday night.

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He grabbed some candy bars off the shelf when one of the store employees became suspicious of him and confronted him. The man started to assault her, so her husband came over and grabbed onto him.

The assailant threw the woman to the floor, fracturing one of her ribs, then started punching her husband in the head. The third store clerk came over and put the man in a headlock, but the man bit his hand hard enough to draw blood.

The man broke free of the headlock, then started tipping shelves over in the store and throwing items around.

He ran from the store, threatening to kill the three employees and punctuating it with a racial epithet.

A Tacoma police officer arrived to find the man outside the store, and the clerk who’d been bitten immediately identified the man. The officer, who was alone, ordered the man to the ground, but the man didn’t comply until the officer armed himself with his Taser. He was then arrested.

While being taken to the Pierce County Jail, the man told the police officer, “Only reason they jumped me is because I’m black,” then used a racial epithet and said he should have beaten them more.

KIRO