By Mark Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE — Brian Reynolds had less than a week to go until retiring from his Milwaukee Fire Department job, but he helped take down a knife-wielding thief Saturday night in the 100 block of W. Oklahoma Ave.

Reynolds, 49, due to retire Friday, was returning from an ambulance run with his partner, Daniel Zidek, when the paramedics saw two security guards chasing a man. The man was running from the Sentry at 123 W. Oklahoma Ave. carrying two liquor bottles. The suspect ran through a parking lot and past the fire station on S. Chase Ave.

Then Reynolds saw the suspect brandishing a knife in the median of W. Oklahoma.

"I told my partner, 'Let's get going. He's going to stab somebody,' " Reynolds said.

The paramedics approached in their ambulance. Reynolds, a former Milwaukee police officer and currently an officer with the State Fair Police, left the ambulance and told the suspect to drop the knife.

Instead, the suspect took about five steps forward, Reynolds said.

"I said, 'This really changes things. You need to think about what you're doing because now you're threatening a police officer with a knife,' " Reynolds recalled.

The suspect dropped the knife down a sewer grate in the median and was apprehended by Reynolds and Zidek. Police arrived within a minute, Reynolds said, and recovered a knife with a folding 4-inch blade from the sewer.

Police Capt. Timothy Burkee said the Fire Department did a great job on what turned out to be a theft and disorderly conduct case.