William Orr's the kind of neighbor most of us want.
Last week, an alleged crook went into Hometown Pharmacy in Mineville at around closing time on Saturday, 1 p.m. He apparently had mayhem on his mind. Armed with a knife, he throttled the couple who own the drug store and stole some drugs, police say.
As he sped out of the pharmacy, someone yelled for help, and there was William Orr, the co-owner of Didder's Tavern nearby.
Though police don't encourage impromptu heroics by citizens, Orr and two customers, Ward Hanchett and Michael McBride -- apparently without giving it a second thought -- took off after the fleeing holdup man and tackled him.
All Orr knew at the time, from deduction based on what he was seeing, was that there had been a robbery. He didn't know whether the man was carrying a weapon -- he wasn't, as he'd thrown his knife into the washroom before he started his flight -- or whether he was on drugs and irrational. In short, he had no idea what he was getting into.
Nevertheless, he plunged into the situation with both feet and immediately took up the chase. When he caught up, the man was struggling and dumped some pills into his own mouth. Orr even tried to get the pills out of the man's mouth.
The three heroes then restrained the man until the police arrived.
No one knows how this case will turn out, of course, but Orr, Hanchett and McBride distinguished themselves, without question. They acted in ways that should make any community proud to have them. If the accused robber, Joseph Budwick of Elizabethtown, is found guilty at trial, Mineville and Essex County can thank this trio, who forsook thoughts of their own safety in the interest of the common good.
It evokes memories of an incident a couple of years ago in Saratoga, when Plattsburgh Police Chief Desmond Racicot overtook a fleeing man to allow police to arrest him. But Racicot is a career cop. You'd expect that, when it comes to overtaking fleeing criminals, he would ... well, take it in stride.
But Orr, Hanchett and McBride are civilians. It's easy to read the account of the confrontation in the newspaper and not attach any human emotion to it, or to reason, "Sure, that's what I'd have done." But, when the action starts, when it comes time to actually light out in pursuit of a potentially dangerous man, who can say what one would really do?
In this case, the proprietors of the pharmacy and all of Mineville had the right men on the spot at the right time. They have more than fulfilled their civic responsibility: They are heroes.
Opinion
April 11, 2008
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