Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Richard O'Lenick, NJ Gun Store owner Interview

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Richard O'Lenick, NJ Gun Store owner Interview · Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, we all know the story by now of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: unruly passenger on a flight to Newark that was so
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: unruly they had to duct tape him to his seat
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and make an emergency landing in Baltimore. What you may
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: not know is that one of the hero passengers on
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that flight is Richard Olenek, who was the owner of
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Gun For Hire. the world's only family destination gun range,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: gun store, and training academy. He's in Woodland Park, New Jersey. Richard,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us today. What an adventure
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you had. Can you tell us what the passenger was
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: doing that made the other passengers take action?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Sure. Good morning. Good morning, Larry. Absolutely. So about two
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: hours into the flight from Dallas heading into Newark, we
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: started hearing, I was with my store sales manager, Juan,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: and him and I started hearing one of the passengers
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: getting very loud and boisterous. They started, eventually he started
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: using profanity and he started just yelling out certain things,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: homophobic and racial slurs. And it very quickly escalated from there.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: What exactly then did you take it upon yourself to do,
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: you and your partner?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I think once it got to the point, initially
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the flight attendants were trying to manage the situation. They
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: were trying to de-escalate, calm him down. They went to him.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: They said, hey, you can't yell. You can't scream. You
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: certainly can't use that language. So they tried to manage
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: it the best they could. And that's the way it
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: stayed for about 10 minutes in total. He kept going
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: back and forth, raising his voice. I think everybody in
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the cabin realized that something was obviously wrong. Like nobody
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: does that. That was, that was very odd. But at
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: that moment, um, when all of a sudden the, the,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the gentleman turned around and put his hands, uh, on
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the pastor next to him on his throat and started
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: actually strangling him. So we, you know, Juan and I immediately,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I heard, um, I heard the, the belt buckles unclip
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, we're, you know, this, you know,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: we're just going to go and, you know, we're going
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: to go.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: And do this.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: We're going to get it done. And we got up
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: right away, and we headed over there and started trying
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: to contain what was happening. Juan immediately got there first.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: He started grabbing this gentleman's arm to get his hand
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: off the other passenger's neck, and then he started to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: try to do the best he could to contain him.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I kind of slid in between the passenger and the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: seat in front of him, and I worked on trying
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to restrain his legs and continued to restrain him. his
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: arms as well.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Now, I understand that you and your partner were injured
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: in this whole thing.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Well, actually, throughout the whole incident, the gentleman was actually
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: trying to bite us, and he was fighting us. He
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: was actively resisting throughout the entire time. And so, yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: and then we also... We also ended up with, with,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: with blood on us. He had injured his arm. Um,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: we believe he injured his arm before this all even
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: started when he was attacking the other passenger, he had
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: cut himself. So by the time we jumped in, he
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: was bleeding from that. And then he was, then when
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: we tried to restrain him, he was very upset about that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Obviously saying, you know, you know, get off of me,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: get off of me. Why are you doing this? And he, he, uh,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: was shouting some other obscenities, uh, throughout it as well. And, um, Yeah,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: and so we definitely tried to de-escalate the situation, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: we tried to bring it down, but he just wasn't
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: having that at that point.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Well, Richard, the photo we saw that's gone global is
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: him duct-taped to the chair from his ankles right to
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: his head. Where did he get the duct tape and
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: the ties? Because you use those ties to tie him down, right?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: What, you don't bring duct tape and ties with you.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: On every flight?
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Just in case.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Don't we all? I mean, I thought everybody did. It's standard.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: So where did it come from? Well, it didn't fall
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: out of the sky, that's for sure. No, the flight
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: attendants actually walked over and gave it to us. Initially,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: they started with the tie cuffs, right? And they saw, obviously,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: they were... So at the moment when it turned physical,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: throughout the initial part of it, there were flight attendants nearby.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: They were addressing him. They were talking to him. But
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: at that very moment when it got physical, there were
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: no flight attendants around. So that's when we kind of,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: like I said, we kind of just knew we were
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: going to get involved with this. We knew we had to.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It had turned physical. Nobody was actually there at that
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: moment to sort of help this gentleman. And we decided
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: to get involved. So we start engaging with him. We
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: start trying to restrain him. And at that point, obviously,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the flight attendants came over. They saw what was going on.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: They kind of took a backseat a little bit because
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: we were engaging and we were trying to de-escalate and
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: restrain this gentleman. But that's when they started seeing that, okay,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: this is not de-escalating. This is only continuing to get worse.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: So they came over with these zip cuffs on. And
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: then at which time Juan and I worked on getting
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: those cuffs on him. We got those cuffs on him.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And believe it or not, at that point, we were
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: kind of hoping, well, OK, maybe this is it. Maybe
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: he'll calm down after. Well, that's not what happened. He
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: ended up just continuing to go full throttle. He was like, no,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going to continue to restrain and continue to fight
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and continue to bite. So that's how it came out. Yeah,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Have you been treated for all these injuries and.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Did you get a rabies shot?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: No, but I did ask, as soon as it ended,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I asked, does anyone have any baby wipes? And they
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: just were throwing baby wipes at me.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: From the back of the plane and everything.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And I was kind of buried in baby wipes. So
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I'm like, so thank you very much, everybody. I really
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: appreciate that. But yeah, there was blood everywhere. His blood
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: was everywhere. It was really uncomfortable. That was probably more
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable than the physical part. I would have rather... you know,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: have a fist fight than have someone's blood all over me. But,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: you know, there was nothing we could do about it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So we just went with it, you know, for the
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: time being, and I just tried to wipe down as
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: quickly as I could right after.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Well, you were one of the Plains heroes, and thanks
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: for spending time with us. Richard Olenek, owner of Gun
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: For Hire, the world's only family destination gun range, gun store,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and training academy in Woodland Park.