Police: Customer puts choke hold on hatchet-wielding robber
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - A customer put a choke hold on a man with a hatchet who tried to rob a deli Sunday night, police said.
Officers arrived on scene at Ashley's Deli, 4027 Main Street, to find Sidney Sean Queener, 22, "in the grasp of the customer," Springfield Police said.
According to police, Queener entered the deli shortly before 9 p.m. with a hatchet and demanded money from an employee.
The customer, Daniel Gehrig of Springfield, said that he heard the events taking place from a nearby slot machine.
"The guy that was robbing the place had no Idea I was behind him," Gehrig said. "I looked back at the employee, he gave me that look of 'Oh my god, what can I do?' ... and that's when it kicked in."
Gehrig said that after he evaluated the situation before he tackled Queener.
"We struggled for a little bit, and I grabbed ahold of the hatchet. He started to struggle some more so I started choking him out until he gave up," said Gehrig. "I didn't even think, I acted. It wasn't about my safety, it was about helping (the cashier)."
Queener faces charges of first degree robbery and menacing.
The incident capped a busy weekend for police, who responded to three shootings and a destructive drunk driving crash in addition to the hatchet robbery.
No tap out for Sidney the psycho!
MMA at the deli!
Hmmmm, maby we need to bad hatchets now. Criminals don't need guns, so lets ban everything.
My brother was the one who put the man in the chokehold! Im so proud of him! Way to go Dan!!!
@Shayna Gonzalez tell your brother thank you..
@Shayna Gonzalez ---let's deputize him and put him on the police payroll. Hope he gets a citizenship medal or citation of bravery from the Mayor. But, I think he is the noble unsung heroic type that craves no such recognition. Darn fine brother you have there. So nice to have a story with a happy ending for a change too. Cheers! And, Happy New Year!Â
 @Shayna Gonzalez Thank God he is ok and didn't get hurt. Kudos Dan!!
a hatchet...another unstable desperate..this country needs major mental health care overhaul!
Just a shame he hadda let go of the choke hold... Better luck next time.
 @John Barnard Yeah, next time choke his ass out!
how many tree trimmers, house painters, plumbers, builders, welders, loggers, tree planters etc.do we need?  We need some big money folks like the fellow named Phil Knight to move one of his big off shore factories into Eugene/Springfield.  As a matter a fact if government truly represented the common man they would make it mandatory.  Unions are broke along with the people.  Folks work for cheap. It is ironic there is a movie about Abe Lincoln when slavery is back with a vengeance  through out the world. We need a bit more cash flow here in U.S. so folks stay out of jail.
What the heck..... Sidneys a nice kid!!! What happened to you????
I would have choked him until he turned blue, no "tapping-out" here.
I will still vote NO on any local tax measure or levy. As long as the local elected officials refuse to listen to the community (ex: EmX), I will use my vote as retaliation. They need to be prudent with public money, regardless of the source of funding. I recommend installing a burglar alarm system and buying a hand gun. That would be a better expenditure of money than giving it to the City or County to be wasted.
Seems to be a spike in this sort of crime and general idiots fighting in neighborhoods with guns..since no one is being held in Jail any longer - how about we open the jail up for the homeless sleeping outside in freezing weather? At least the tax dollars that are used for the Jail would be of some use since it is no longer is used for the purpose that is was built.
Then we can send all the police over to the schools to protect our children from the people they no longer put in jail.
I see a pattern here...the insanity of it all.
The pay raises Obama just granted congress would pay for a lot of jail beds somewhere.
Â
No joke. Your messiah just granted himself and congress pay raises. Biden the most worthless of the bunch gets another $7K added to his 1/4 million dollar salary.
Â
You want insanity? Well there it is.
@OregonOrator ---They must have forecast the tax hike on everyone else and they're just ensuring that they can maintain their same net income, while everyone elses' will go down, down, down in 2013. Greedy and clever. An implicit bribe for congress to tax away.
And I suppose he will be out of jail within the week? Â Geesh
Still
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According to the police, he should have been given all the money and sent on his way so when they showed up sometime later in the day so they could take a report from the survivor, if any. Of course, if it hadn't been for the hatchet, they wouldn't have shown up at all and just taken a report to be forever lost in electronic database land with the stolen cars, private vandalism etc.
@hewhoo They're too busy harrassing those evil speeders to be bothered with conducting real police work.
looks like springfield needs to open a work camp for all these 20 something kidds/young men! they seam to have alota energy. if we could just find something legal that they could do besides get into trouble.
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