hold down 復習

先生のふるさとで起きた事件からです。

Yamaguchi man overpowered, arrested after threatening woman on train with box-cutter

A 31-year-old man was arrested Thursday after threatening a woman sitting next to him with a box-cutter knife on a train in the city of Yamaguchi, police said.

According to the police, a passenger of a JR train called the Hiroshima branch of West Japan Railway Co. at about 4 p.m. on Thursday, saying a man was wielding a box-cutter against a female passenger, 24, and threatening to kill her. The train had been at Honyura Station on the JR Sanyo Honsen Line.

Soon afterward, the driver of the train and other passengers held the man down, and he was arrested on the spot for allegedly intimidating the female passenger. None of the 80 passengers was injured, police said.

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/114513.php#sthash.jghw1Vro.dpuf

hold downという句動詞には，文字通りの「押し下げる」から「抑制する」「足を引っ張る」「地位を保つ，仲を保つ」などいろいろな意味がありますが，ここは"to hold someone who is lying down, so that they cannot move"(Macmillan Dictionary Online)です。（Starlight）