11 YEARS AGO • APRIL 9, 2009

TROUT CREEK RESIDENTS RALLY TO CORNER AND DETAIN ROBBER

By Jay Simons

Fast action by Trout Creek residents prevented an armed robber from making a getaway Sunday after forcing a clerk at Aitken’s Quik Stop to give him $1300 in cash from the till.

At about 6 p.m., a white Pathfinder pulled into the parking lot. A man, August White Dirt, entered the store and headed for the restroom. Clerk, Lindsay Achatz was behind the counter. Before long she found herself in his grasp and threatened with a knife. After being forced to empty the till, she managed to escape to the Naughty Pine Saloon across the street where she found more than one patron willing to come to her aid.

Her uncle, Audie Hanley was eating dinner there.

“She was totally hysterical. I couldn’t understand anything she said,” Hanley said. “So I took her outside to calm her down. She said a man had threatened her with a knife and was robbing Aitken’s. Then she turned and saw the robber coming out the door. “That’s him,” she screamed.

Dolly Vulgamore had encountered Achatz as she turned into Aitken’s. Achatz ran to her vehicle and said, “He’s got a knife.” Vulgamore and nephew Seth Knuth of Thompson Falls, tried to make sense of it.

Hanley was running across the street and yelled, “Stop him! Stop him.”

Mike Ingbretson, who was parked at Aitkens, started off after the robber. Then Knuth jumped out and others began getting into their cars to see if they could cut him off.

“Mike got him down,” Audie said, “but the guy turned over, picked up a large rock, smashed Mike in the face and took off again. Joe Connelly and I got into my Jeep and drove toward the railroad tracks. Mike and Seth leaped fences, chased him through yards around houses and garages, up the street and across an open field. Then we lost him. I worried that he could get into the forest where we’d have lost him for good. I drove up the road a little more and Connelly spotted him hiding behind a tree.”

By this time, more Trout Creek residents joined the chase Ingbretson and Hanley were running out of steam, but Knuth, a slender 18-year-old Blue Hawk football player and wrester, still had it in him. He chased the suspect up onto the railroad tracks, kicked the legs out from under him and tackled him. He tried to get up but Hanley, Knuth, Ingbretson, John Harris and Patrick Keeler restrained him.

“He kept trying to get into his pocket where he had the knife. Dollars were falling out of his pocket as well as his wallet,” said Hanley.

“The guys told me to empty his pockets, but I wanted to wait until the deputies arrived. The knife the guy used to threaten my niece was in there along with the cash he stole,” Hanley said. “I’m glad I left things alone.”

The suspect was still trying to get loose when Sam Burt came by. Harris asked him if he had anything to tie the suspect’s hands. He came back with plastic ties, which Hanley said wouldn’t work. Neighbor Joanne Pruett said she had duct tape, which she retrieved. Harris bound the robbers legs together before the deputies arrived.

Knuth of Thompson Falls is being called a hero by classmates for tackling the robber. But the reticent youth said the honors belong to Ingbretson who knocked White Dirt down twice before he (Seth) made the final play. “I just tackled him.” He said Hanley deserves a lot of credit, too, and Patrick Keeler, a disabled Marine veteran, who came running but got hurt when he tried to jump the fence.

Harris, owner of the Lakeside Motel, told it like it was. “This was a huge community effort. When Lindsay came screaming from Aitken’s and Audie Hanley started running after the guy, everybody went into action. Whether they called 9-1-1 or got into cars to keep the guy from escaping down the roads, they are all heroes. I have to admit, Hanley is some kind of runner.