State senator, sanitation workers chase down alleged shoplifter

MIDWOOD (WABC) -- A wild scene played out on a crowded street and it was all caught on camera.

A state senator from Brooklyn tried to take down a suspected shoplifter, but the suspect gets away. That's when three sanitation workers jumped off their truck and wrestled the guy to the ground.

"I'm sorry man, I'm never going to show up in your store again," said Samir Samedon.

Some thieves have great timing. Samir Samedon, not so much.

"'Stop that guy, stop that guy!' It was straight out of the movies," said Paul Hernandez, a witness.

His luck ran out before it even began, when he walked into the Associated Supermarket, and manager Adam Moustafa saw him eying the Taster's Choice.

"He opened his jacket he had a coat on, and he put two that way and two that way," Moustafa said.

In the exclusive security video, he stuffs four cans of coffee into his jacket and runs out with the shopkeeper on his tail.

"And that's when I saw Simcha Felder chase after him and drag him back to where I was sitting," said Roger Goldberg, an eyewitness.

State Senator Simcha Felder's office is right across the street.

Sanitation workers Paul Hernandez and Brian Tullo recognized Felder and stopped to help the senator subdue the shoplifter.

"And next thing you know he takes off," Hernandez said. "And then the senator starts running and then we start running."

"As we round the corner, we see Supervisor Scudieri," Tullo said.

"I see Paul and Brian come running down chasing somebody," said Frank Scudieri, a sanitation supervisor.

"I yelled out to Frank, said 'Stop that thief!'" Hernandez said.

The two sanitation workers and their boss Frank Scudieri chased Samedon for blocks before they finally got him down in the snow as he begged for mercy.

Simon Gifter recorded every moment.

"'Oh I didn't do anything, my mother just died, all it was was coffee,'" Gifter said.

Police quickly arrived and placed Samedon in cuffs. A would-be thief who epitomizes bad timing, in a close knit neighborhood that was not about to let him get away.

"If he didn't show up you think he would have gotten away?" Eyewitness News asked.

"No we would have caught him," Hernandez said.