A 30-year-old Ceres man was arrested after he allegedly tried to steal a customer’s adult tricycle in front of Ace Hardware on Sunday evening.

The tricycle was peddled to the store by a regular customer of the store in the Richland Shopping Center. As he was shopping an employee of the store saw Thomas Rivas, 30, of Ceres, get on it and began to ride off. When the employee confronted Rivas and told him that the tricycle did not belong to him, the suspect replied that it had been stolen from him and he was taking it back. When the employee blocked Rivas, he threatened to assault the employee if they didn’t get out of the way. 

The victim and other employees heard the argument in front of the store and came outside.  Rivas got off of the tricycle and began yelling at them. Rivas removed a knife from his waistband and threatened to kill the victim. Seeing that he was outnumbered, Rivas retreated and left the tricycle.

After police were called at 6 p.m. Rivas was located, arrested and booked for attempted robbery and making criminal threats.