Man Arrested for Taking Too Many Samples at Supermarket
A retiree suing over his arrest in a supermarket had been warned before by store managers that he was helping himself to too many free samples, a defendant in the suit says.
Among the things a store manager had scolded Erwin Lingitz about: He had filled produce bags with up to 20 cookies from the “kids’ cookie club tray,” defendant Supervalu Inc. claims in its answer to the Gem Lake man’s federal lawsuit.
Lingitz is suing Supervalu, Ramsey County, its sheriff’s office, three deputies and a private security company over an April 2010 incident at a Cub Foods in White Bear Township.
The 68-year-old former laboratory machinist claims he was roughed up and his civil rights were violated by a security guard and then sheriff’s deputies after he was confronted and accused of helping himself to too many free samples of lunch meat.
and even more shocking:
“Plaintiff had approximately 14-16 packets of soy sauce along with one plastic produce bag containing 0.61 pounds for (sic) summer sausage and another plastic produce bag containing 0.85 pounds of beef stick in his pockets,” she wrote. “Near the end of aisle 10 on the day in question, Cub Foods had two un-hosted sample platters, one containing beef stick and one containing summer sausage.”
