Commissioner Gibbs accused of shoplifting at local Meijer
Officials: She was detained by security workers after not paying for some items
Controversial Royal Oak City Commissioner Kim Gibbs was detained at Meijer by security workers Wednesday for retail fraud and ticketed by police.
Royal Oak Police Chief Corrigan O’Donohue confirmed that police were called to the store at 5150 Coolidge by loss prevention work- ers.
“She was ticketed at the scene for a misdemeanor violation of retail fraud” and released,” O’Donohue said.
Gibbs, a Republican seeking election to the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, is accused of taking a shopping cart of grocery items worth about $130 to a self check-out scanner inside the store.
“She paid for about $45 worth of the items and not the others,” O’Donohue said.
Misdemeanor violators have been getting tickets rather than facing immediate arrest because of the reduced functions at courts statewide during the COVID-19 crisis, police said.
The ticket given Gibbs on Wednesday indicates she has to appear in court on the retail fraud charge June 16 in Royal Oak 44th District Court.
Gibbs’ shoplifting violation comes just nine days after she was censured by a majority of the City Commission and asked to resign.
The censure vote was drafted after Gibbs was seen at the Operation Gridlock protest in Lansing on April 15 against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stayat-home order during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gibbs was criticized in the nearly two-page resolution for violating the governor’s order during a declared state of emergency as people with COVID-19 continue to die.
The Operation Gridlock protest was organized for attendees to stay in their vehicles and block traffic around the Michigan Capitol building.
Gibbs, however was seen walking around with no face mask, trying to dodge appearing on a FOX 2 news camera and failing to stay at least six feet away from other people.
She told the Royal Oak Tribune in an interview the same day she was at the protest in the interest of small businesses owners affected by Whitmer’s emergency orders.
“In my eyes, the scare on the coronavirus is over,” Gibbs said April 15. “I’m not a doctor, but my personal belief is that the people who got it, or are going to get it, have already gotten it, so let’s get back to work.”
She is reportedly getting legal aid on the censure issue from the Thomas More Law Center, which has a high profile in pro-conservative issues. The legal firm has threatened to sue Royal Oak over Gibb’s censure in federal court.