{"id":98211,"date":"2015-03-03T21:37:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T11:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=98211"},"modified":"2020-11-20T12:50:37","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T02:50:37","slug":"thank-you-from-local-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/03\/03\/thank-you-from-local-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank You From Local Police"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Acting Senior Sergeant Brad Johannesen, Acting Inspector Duane Frank, First Ave Store owners Megan Blasius and Werner Blasius and Kingaroy SES Group Leader Peter Verbakel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

March 3, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“We fed them, we let them use our toilet our back, we made coffees,” Megan said today.<\/p>\n

“They never asked for food but somebody had to feed them. We made platters of hot finger food and took them outside.”<\/p>\n

The First Ave Store is normally open from 6:30am to 7:00pm, but on that Friday it stayed open until 9:30pm.<\/p>\n

“We donated the food. We didn’t want anything … it was a long day for them as well,” Werner said.<\/p>\n

The couple were impressed by the professionalism of the police during the siege.<\/p>\n

“They had it all under control. It was all really well organised,” Werner said.<\/p>\n

The couple’s assistance on the day has not gone unnoticed by the Queensland Police Service.<\/p>\n

Acting Inspector Duane Frank presented Werner and Megan today with a Certificate of Appreciation from the Dalby Patrol Group.<\/p>\n