CA Burglar Thwarted by Safe Use of a Gun — No Shots Fired

Dentist and dental assistant detained the man at gunpoint
until police arrived. The man was on parole for…burglary.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20000324-0010_3m24dentist.html

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Dentist helps nab suspect in office burglary

By Joe Hughes
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 24, 2000

LA JOLLA — A La Jolla dentist grappled with a burglary suspect in his offices over the noon hour yesterday, and one of his employees used the dentist’s holstered gun to hold the suspect until police got there.

The incident began during a lunch break at the Herschel Avenue offices of Dr. Thomas G. Brown, police said. Staff members saw a man leaving Brown’s private office with a bank deposit bag and confronted him in a hallway.

When the man bolted for the front door, Brown and his lab technician grabbed him, and all three fell to the floor.

“We wrestled him to the ground,” Brown said. “We didn’t want to harm him, but we didn’t want him getting away, either.”

An employee called 911 while another grabbed Brown’s holstered gun from a drawer to keep the man from escaping, police said.

When the call first came through, officers thought the suspect had a gun and was holding hostages in the office. Dispatchers fielding the first 911 call heard people in the background hysterical and screaming.

“It was pretty tense,” said receptionist Madeline Osborn, who saw the man “strolling” through rooms in the offices.

“He grabbed the bank bag and put it under his shirt,” Osborn said. “In my 25 years in the profession, I’ve never heard of anything like this happening.”

No patients were in the office at the time.

After the man was detained, police found a key to the dentist’s practice in his pocket.

The bank bag was recovered. It contained only deposit slips and no money, said San Diego police spokesman Bill Robinson.

The suspect was identified as Jack Waring, 41, of Logan Heights. Waring was on parole for burglary.