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Posted on 04/09/2026 1:21:22 PM PDT by algore
An entitled Oregon shoplifter has sued a grocery store after a clerk beat him up for stealing a cart full of corn dogs and cookies.
Joshua Merkel is asking for $10,000 to cover the medical expenses and mental anguish he claims was inflicted during the foiled heist in southwest Portland.
Merkel has sued Albertson's grocery store and cashier Matthew Cooper for allegedly attacking him outside the store, leaving him with a black eye and a shattered jaw.
The incident happened two years ago, but Merkel filed a civil lawsuit, seen by The Oregonian, last month in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Merkel, 45, has claimed Cooper, 31, went 'way too far' when he intercepted him - though a jury found the clerk not guilty of second-degree assault in a criminal case.
The shoplifter claims he committed the crime because he was 'ravenous'. Despite that apparent hunger, he still took the time to fill his cart with T-bone steaks and frozen corn dogs.
Merkel had cash in his pocket at the time of the crime.
'I understand I was committing a crime. I shouldn't have done it, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been there, stealing and hungry,' Merkel testified during the criminal trial, 'But it went way too far.'
'I didn't at all want to fight. I just wanted some food,' Merkel said in court.
Merkel's lawyers tried to depict him as a 'starving' man who stole out of desperation.
Meanwhile, Cooper's defense attorney Jason Steen pointed out that Merkel had tried to make off with high-dollar items like T-bone steak.
Steen argued that he intended to trade some of the goods for methamphetamine.
Cooper would have been jailed for almost six years if he had been found guilty at the criminal trial, but he was acquitted in September.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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OK now you know what to do, shop owners!
Okay people, beat that meat!
The criminal loser should be deported. What a stain on the USA.
Not merely starving, but starving for t-bones instead of potatoes and chicken or even a good chuck roast. Why does no one shoplift a cartload of frozen vegetables?
My local have maybe 5 t bones most days.
What kind of cookies?
“leaving him with a black eye and a shattered jaw.”
Nice!
Buy that clerk a steak!
Reasons I don’t live in Multnomah County include …
… being a straight white conservative Jew, I’d be convicted before the trial even began!
There is no way for a guy like me to survive a Portland jury.
In a righteous country he’d be convicted of cattle rustling and hung by noon.
If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
Usually, shoplifters are DemocRATS who prefer “impossible” lawn clipping beef. Why is the idiot stealing beef pollutants?
I told this story before. At the university library where I used to work a female student assistant’s boyfriend saw a guy go out of the doors with a large stack of stolen books, past the alarm.
The boyfriend ran out, kept running, getting closer to the guy across campus. the perp tripped on a cracked, uneven stretch of concrete walk and fell, breaking his hip and arm.
He successfully sued the university and won a lot of money.
The rule was: never take it upon yourself to try to capture a criminal. You can’t replace the campus police.
If there’s one thing you can get a myriad of ways today it’s food. They’re literally giving the stuff away by the truckload.
That guy was NOT starving - lots of body fat.
He was lazy and entitled. Period. He could have gone to a food pantry or a church, but nooo, he had to steal.
Another reason to never visit Portland.
Judges used to laugh these cases out of court, not anymore I guess. Allowing these cases to ever get in a courtroom seats paydays for useless attorneys and pass the cost off on the poor smuck that is being sued.
They sell steak at cvs?
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