ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Father’s Day outing quickly turned dangerous, and that was it captured on camera.
It happened at the Best Steak House in St. Paul.
Off-duty St. Paul Police Officer Jonathan Valencia was out with his family when he saw a man pacing back and forth before getting in line. He says he immediately had a bad feeling about him.
“I noticed this person raised a red flag in my head,” Valencia said.
Surveillance video from inside the restaurant shows the moment the suspect reached for the tip jar.
“At that moment I knew I had to intervene,” Valencia said.
In the video, the suspect grabs the tip jar before walking towards the door. A customer in line grabbed his shirt and then Valencia intervened.
“As he tried to get away from a man holding his shirt, I saw a knife,” he said.
You can see Valencia speaking commands before reaching for his gun. The situation spreads outside before the suspect releases the knife.
“We were lucky that there was an off-duty police officer on duty at the time,” said co-owner Irene Katras.
Katras and her husband, Viktor Vasileiadis, say the restaurant had only been open for three months before this happened.
A fire shut them down for more than a year before they reopened last March.
It was these steaks and the cooking that gave Valencia and his family a time when he was needed before he even knew it.
“It was the right time, the right place,” Valencia smiled.
The 39-year-old man faces two charges of first-degree theft. In a post-Miranda interview, the man said he tried to take the tip jar because he was hungry, and that he pulled the knife because he thought the staff member would hurt him.
