It is important in a marriage to get a little time alone. Sometimes conversation has to branch out past who is picking up the kids from school.
During date night you count on the two of you basking in your holy matrimony without any distractions.
For one couple, date night had something entirely different in store for them – yet something all too familiar at the same time.
What do I mean by that?
Chase McKeown and Nicole McKeown have a lot in common, most notably they are both officers at the Elizabethtown Police Department.
While trying to take a break from their life of serving and protecting, they went to Raising Cane’s in Mid City Mall to have a low-key date night.
“Every week, make sure we have a date night,” Chase told WHAS 11.
Partway into their meal a man, Justin Carter, 30, walks in wearing a mask.
At first, they think it may be a precaution against the flu, reports WDRB. After all, ‘tis the season.
The man approaches the cashier who instinctively puts her hands in the air. Footage would later show that the man brandished a gun before demanding all the money in the register.
When the off-duty officers who were closely monitoring the suspicious patron see the employee’s hands go up they immediately knew what was happening.
Nicole asked if he is doing “what I think he’s doing?” And Chase responded, “Yeah.” Both ready to do what they do best…stop crime.
Without hesitation, Chase handed the phone to Nicole and told her to call 911, but she wasn’t about to let her husband spend date night alone.
Jumping up to assist her husband with her weapon drawn, Nicole and Chase approach the perpetrator.
“There was literally no question. We looked at each other—is this happening? Let’s go,” Chase recalled to WHAS 11.
The super duo instructed Carter to drop his gun, which was later discovered to be stolen from Jeffersontown Police, whereupon he fled the building.
The action didn’t stop there!
Carter was chased by the dynamic couple down the block where he was arrested a block away.
Because of the McKeown’s bravery and instinct, Carter is now facing charges of robbery, receiving a stolen firearm, and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.
The McKeown’s tried to have a date night “away from the job,” as Chase put it, but the job followed them.
“When it comes to people’s lives in danger, I feel like any other officer here would have done the exact same thing—get the bad guy,” Nicole said.
Chase and Nicole could have ignored the robber or let him run away after they had scared him out of the building.
Instinct, training, and dedication to the safety and security of others is a police officer’s duty and passion, and that’s why they didn’t stop until the “bad guy” was detained.
We thank the McKeowns for taking another criminal off the street, for protecting those in imminent danger, and for sacrificing their date night to apprehend a criminal.
