Subway worker: Hostage-taker’s face ‘makes me cringe’

GLADSTONE, Ore. (KOIN) — A worker let go by a shooting suspect who barricaded himself inside a Gladstone Subway with a hostage Monday night told KOIN 6 News it all happened so fast, she didn’t have time to be afraid.

“Just seeing his face again makes me cringe,” Danielle said about Jeffrey Carl Giddings, the man who allegedly opened fire on a Gladstone police officer before barricading himself inside a Subway restaurant.

Danielle said she first saw Giddings shuffling sideways outside the store. She recalled seeing something black in his hand. It turned out to be the same gun Giddings would later use to confront Danielle and her coworker who took cover in a back room.

“I asked him, ‘What do you want? You want money? We can give you what’s in the safe. Please don’t hurt us,'” Danielle said. “He promised he wouldn’t hurt us, didn’t want to hurt us, that the cops were going to come kill him and he looked really shaken up… I said, ‘Can you please let me and my friend go?'”

Danielle said Giddings needed to keep one person for reassurance, and opted to let her go.

She said she bolted out of the store, running faster than she had in her entire life.

Two hours later, Danielle’s coworker Liz Mincer convinced Giddings to let her use the restroom. Danielle said it was at that time, when Giddings was standing outside the bathroom, that authorities were able to shoot him without hurting Mincer.

Danielle said her co-worker is shaken up, but doing OK.

“He didn’t physically hurt her, just mentally damaging,” Danielle said.

Danielle said Mincer told her that at one point Giddings took a break from the standoff to get high. She said she watched him do drugs as she was held hostage.

Now Danielle and her family are wondering if the judicial system let her down. Giddings, who has a storied criminal history, was originally sentenced to be behind bars for 9 more years. But he recently had that reduced to time served.

“This could’ve not happened if the judge just threw him in jail in the first place like he should have been with all those charges,” Danielle said.

Her family wants to know if they can hold the system accountable for the incident.

She says it’ll probably be a couple weeks before she goes back to work. “I don’t know how i’m going to feel about walking back through those doors at Subway. I think that’s when it’s really going to hit me and it’s going to be really eerie.”