A customer who refused service because he was not wearing a face mask returned to a Burger King in Wayne and grabbed a female employee by the throat, police said, arresting him shortly thereafter.
An employee came to the rescue of the victim after David Sivertsen, 47, of Hackettstown, began choking her, Detective Capt. Dan Daly said.
Police responded to the Route 23 fast-food joint earlier Saturday after Sivertsen argued with employees about wearing a mask, Daly said.
He was gone when they got there, the captain said.
In the surveillance video, Sivertsen is returned shortly after 16:00
He grabbed an employee – who he weighed more than 80 pounds – put his hands around her neck and began choking her, Daly said.
An employee scared him off, the captain said.
The victim refused hospitalization when officers searched for her attacker.
A vigilant patrol officer found a drunk Sivertsen in a driveway on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike.
“You have me,” Sivertsen told the officer, Daly said.
He ‘appeared excited and apparently under the influence of alcohol’, the captain said.
It did not end there, he said.
At headquarters, Sivertsen “deliberately hit his head in the steel bench he was handcuffed to,” Daly said.
He was taken to a local hospital and, after being medically cleared, booked into Passaic County Jail to waive his first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Paterson on charges of aggravated assault.
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