Man with meat cleaver chases off gunman in robbery at Warner Robins video poker shop
The stickup try at the video-poker shop lasted all of maybe 15 seconds.
And for the robber it came with a surprise — and cashless — ending.
A video of the predawn holdup on Nov. 19 shows a bandit darting inside a small gaming store known as Knodishall Gift Shop.
The establishment, where patrons can play video poker around the clock, sits in what appears to be a former house at the corner of Knodishall Drive and Mauk Circle. The place lies about 250 feet north of Watson Boulevard along the western edge of Warner Robins.
Just after 5 a.m. on the day of the holdup, a man and woman — workers, apparently — were in the shop’s office when a masked intruder, armed with a small rifle, made a beeline toward them.
The gunman, wearing a black hoodie, a blue-rimmed baseball cap and sporting undershorts exposed by his loose-fitting pants, marched maybe seven steps to the office door.
Then he raised the rifle, a weapon that investigators have not been able to identify, surprising a man behind the door who promptly held up his hands as if to surrender. Two seconds later, as the gunman retreated, the man in the office emerged with a meat cleaver.
The gunman, still backing away, raised his gun to eye level and appeared to try to shoot at the man waving the meat cleaver. But the gun may have jammed, and when it did the man with the meat cleaver ran at him, chasing him out the door.
The gunman took off in a car.
Save for the video, which investigators posted on the Houston County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page Monday, not many other details were known about the robbery.
The man with the meat cleaver told the cops he did not recognize the bandit.
Nor did the man mention how, by fortuitous chance, that he happened to have a meat cleaver at arm’s reach.
“I have no idea why he had it,” sheriff’s Sgt. Anna Lange said.
This story was originally published December 1, 2021 at 12:26 PM.