Former 49er Brent Jones was quick to give chase and tackle a suspect after she allegedly brandished a gun during an attempted robbery at Escapades clothing store in the Livery on Sycamore Valley Road shortly after 11 a.m. last Friday.
“I was just heading out to lunch, when I heard screaming,” said Jones, who works at Northgate Capital Group. “Then another lady starting screaming, ‘Call 9-1-1, they have a gun.'”
He said he saw someone running through the parking lot so he took off in pursuit.
“About halfway there I realized it was a lady so I wasn’t going to give her the full ‘football’ treatment,” he said, “but I did hit her pretty hard. I had her in a bear hug.”
Mike Naar, part of a management group distributing the Danville Weekly to businesses, was just exiting the jewelry shop next door when he heard the screaming. He quickly followed Jones into the parking lot and, after Jones had the suspect subdued, grabbed her backpack. It contained only the gun, which turned out to be a pellet gun, Naar said.
Police showed up shortly afterward and arrested Kimberly Pavlakis, 48. She was booked into the Martinez detention facility on charges of armed robbery, burglary and possession of stolen property.
Sharon Lindahl of Danville was working in Escapades alone when the robbery attempt occurred.
“A lady came in. She had on a huge black hat and a big bag,” Lindahl recalled. “She said, ‘This is a holdup and I have a gun.’ She showed me the gun, brought it up with the nose of the gun over the top of the bag. I looked at it and started screaming.”
Lindahl, who has worked for Escapades for four years, said she grabbed a high stool from behind the counter, heaved it at the woman, and ran out of the store screaming. “That’s when Brent Jones caught her heading down to her car,” said Lindahl.
The gun was a pellet gun made to look like a real gun, said Sgt. Ron Bradley of the Danville Police Department. “It was an unusual crime,” said Bradley and not only because armed robbery is unusual in Danville. “She said in the interview her motive was to rob a pair of jeans.”
Brent Jones, who played tight end for the San Francisco 49ers from 1987-97, has lived in Danville since 1995. “I was just trying to be a helpful resident of the town we love so much,” he said.
