March 3, 2015
When First Ave Store owner Werner Blasius heard noises in the middle of the night on January 16 this year, he got up to investigate … and came face-to-face with some very serious looking police outside his shop.
An emergency situation had been declared under the Public Safety Preservation Act at 3:40am in the Haly Street / First Avenue area of Kingaroy and police were securing the area.
What Werner and his wife Megan didn’t know then was that a siege in a nearby house would continue until 9:00pm that night, and that police, specialist negotiators, SES volunteers and other emergency services personnel would be camped out in First Avenue for more than 23 hours.
“We fed them, we let them use our toilet our back, we made coffees,” Megan said today.
“They never asked for food but somebody had to feed them. We made platters of hot finger food and took them outside.”
The First Ave Store is normally open from 6:30am to 7:00pm, but on that Friday it stayed open until 9:30pm.
“We donated the food. We didn’t want anything … it was a long day for them as well,” Werner said.
The couple were impressed by the professionalism of the police during the siege.
“They had it all under control. It was all really well organised,” Werner said.
The couple’s assistance on the day has not gone unnoticed by the Queensland Police Service.
Acting Inspector Duane Frank presented Werner and Megan today with a Certificate of Appreciation from the Dalby Patrol Group.
- Related article: Haly St Incident Ends Peacefully
