Married off-duty police officers take down restaurant robber on their date night
Detective Chase McKeown and Officer Nicole McKeown sit down with 'Fox & Friends' to describe what happened on their dinner date.
A married couple of police officers in Kentucky described "Fox & Friends" how they interrupted their date night to thwart an armed robbery at a Lexington fried-chicken restaurant, drawing their guns and chasing the suspect out of the building.
“We just went there to enjoy a relaxing meal and it went another way,” Detective Chase McKeown told “Fox & Friends" on Thursday.
Chase and his wife, Officer Nicole McKeown, both of the Elizabethtown Police Department, have been married for six months and were out for date at a branch of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers on Saturday night, Louisville's WDRB reported.
“I initially just saw his face and saw the mask, but it’s a surgical mask, it’s flu season — so I didn’t think a whole lot of it at the time. It was the cashier’s behavior that stood out, especially when I saw her hands go up,” Nicole said. “I looked at him and said, 'Is he doing what I think he’s doing?' … He had a better view than I did and saw that he had a gun in his hand and that there was a robbery taking place so at that point we just kind of fell on training and we had to do something,” she explained.
The suspect, 30-year-old Justin Carter, was flashing a gun at an employee as he demanded money from the register.
“Training took over. We both drew our firearms and approached him,” Chase said.
Security cameras captured the moment both off-duty officers got up from their table in a back booth, drew their guns and ran to the front of the restaurant. The couple can be seen chasing a man wearing a mask and a black hoodie out of the building.
Carter dropped his weapon and fled on foot, according to a police report. The McKeowns ran after him and held him at gunpoint a few blocks away. Lexington Police Department officers responded to the scene and placed Carter under arrest.
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He has been charged with first-degree robbery, receiving a stolen firearm and possessing a handgun as a convicted felon. Authorities determined the gun Carter had was stolen from Jeffersontown police, according to the police report. Carter appeared in court Monday and was represented by a public defender. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 25.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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