Bank robbed: Thief nearly hit by car as he flees scene
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The lone robber remains at-large after the bank heist, which marked the fourth at the location in the past 10 years. He was last seen fleeing on foot in the direction of Hobson Street, during which time witnesses said he was nearly run over when he ran in front of a car.
Police want to talk to the driver who nearly hit the robber then left the scene, hoping he or she may have gotten a good look at the criminal. Police do not know if the robber got into a vehicle later to complete his escape or if he continued running on foot and took cover in a home nearby.
The robbery happened at 4:05 p.m. Monday when the suspect walked into the bank wearing a camouflage mask, gray sweat pants and a bright blue shirt. He then reportedly laid a Wal-Mart sack on the counter ordering the teller to ?give me all the money.?
The teller then asked the man if he was kidding, to which the robber responded by showing her a small handgun which he had concealed on his person. The teller then placed an amount of cash, believed to be over $2,000, into the sack. An exact amount has not been revealed. The suspect then fled on foot, disappearing before police arrived four minutes later to answer the alarm.
According to McMinnville Police Capt. Bryan Denton, police have explored several possibilities, however they presently have no firm suspects.
?If anybody happened to be driving by or was in the area and saw anything we would like to talk to them,? Denton said, noting police would especially like to talk to the person who almost ran over the robber, adding the motorist is not in any trouble. ?Anyone with information, no matter how minor, should call the detective?s office at 473-3386.?
As for response time to the robbery, police arrived four minutes after the robbery was dispatched.
?It was out to officers in 40 seconds of us receiving the call,? said 911 Director Chuck Haston. ?It was called in to us by an alarm company so we have no idea how long it took them to contact us after the alarm was activated in the bank.?
Haston noted it can take minutes for an alarm to be reported to dispatch if the monitoring company is located outside the Warren County area. Such alarms are generally monitored by private monitoring services which, after receiving an alarm, have to alert emergency dispatch where the incident is occuring.
As for the choice of banks, police are baffled as to why that location has been the target of so many robberies over the years given the fact it is located in one of the heaviest traveled sections of the city.
While charges were never leveled for the robbery, it is believed the location was the first target of the serial robber known as the Rush-Hour Bandit almost a decade ago. The bandit got his name because he hit most of his targets at rush hour.
The Monday heist was technically at rush hour, however, the man identified as the Rush-Hour Bandit, R.V. Young of White County, is not on the suspect list as he is currently serving a 92-year prison sentence for robberies of banks across the Midstate.
The last man who robbed the location, which was then Cumberland Bank, is serving a 93-month federal sentence for robbing the bank of $14,000. That robbery occurred in 2003. The robber in that case, Russell Pease, was captured a short time after the heist thanks to information provided by eyewitnesses.