Bucket Of Chili Stops Robber Cold


A bucket of chili flakes isn’t the usual alternative to pepper spray, a shotgun, or a baseball bat, but it’s what one enterprising 27-year-old Australian woman used to defend herself against a bold robber.

The Sunday night robbery seemed to come on impulse, after 24-year-old Tyrone Holmwood got into a dispute with two workers in a take-out chicken restaurant.

“It’s alleged he walked behind the counter and tried to push the two workers aside before attempting to open the cash register,” police Inspector Paul Thornton said.

An unnamed worker ran for help, but Joanna Tarnosk tried to stop Holmwood from taking the money. He then allegedly flung the cash register on the floor and began to assault Tarnosk instead.

Not a good idea.

You’re not going to get away with anything in this young woman’s shop. She grabbed the bucket of chili and flung it his face. Ouch.

“[S]he’s responded with a bucket of chili flakes over his face, it was the actual chili that’s got in the face and floored him,” Thornton explained. He was still writhing on the floor when the police arrived to arrest him.

By that point, he was probably just as happy to be taken away. He was treated for minor burns at the police station, where he was also charged with assault and intent to rob the store.

The restaurant said that the ingredients in their chili sauce are secret, and they haven’t really said what kind of chili flakes were involved. However, I think we can assume that it was some sort of red chili flakes, which shares the same active ingredient, capsicum, that’s used in self-defense red pepper sprays.

Would you have put two and two together fast enough to realize you could take a robber down by throwing a bucket of chili flakes his way?

[chili flakes photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

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