A pair of married, off-duty cops on date night at a Kentucky restaurant stopped an armed man who tried to rob it.
The incident took place at Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers in Louisville on Saturday night, according to USA Today.
Justin T. Carter, 30, entered the establishment wearing a mask and wielding a handgun that was later determined to have been stolen from Jeffersontown police.
He threatened an employee with the firearm and demanded money, at which point officer Nicole McKeown and her husband, Det. Chase McKeown, interrupted their date night to intervene.
They drew their weapons but Carter decided to risk making a run for it. He dropped his gun and fled the restaurant with the two officers in pursuit. A few minutes later they caught him.
The couple said they reacted instinctively.
"That’s where that repetitiveness and that training kicks in," Nicole told NBC's Louisville affiliate WAVE.
"We’re trained for those kinds of situations," she continued. "And when it comes to those people’s lives being in danger, I feel like any other officer here would have done the exact same thing."
Chase said they did not stop to think about whether they should intervene.
"It was a matter of, this is happening, we’re trained to act, we acted. That’s all there was to it," he said.
Carter faces charges of first-degree robbery, receiving a stolen firearm and possessing a handgun as a convicted felon, according to court records cited by USA Today.
He made his first court appearance Monday and is being held on $50,000 bond by Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. His preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place on Feb. 25.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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