RSS Electronic Edition | Newsletters Subscribe | Customer Service Contact Us | Community Buy Photos Modmomsclub

Local

Saturday, Sep. 05, 2009

Standoff in Manteca comes to an end

Bank robbed, 2 men flee and hole up in a duplex

E-Mail Print

MANTECA — Two men with handguns pulled off a bold robbery at the Bank of America on Yosemite Avenue and Main Street on Friday morning.

Wearing hooded sweat shirts, one red and one blue, the two men entered shortly before 11 a.m., made everyone lie flat on the floor, jumped over the counter and took an undisclosed amount of money from one of the teller's drawers.

Their getaway, however, ran into a snag, and they were eventually arrested.

Someone inside the bank called 911 to report a robbery in progress and the dispatch was heard by three motorcycle policemen who happened to be within a block of the bank. One saw the two suspects running from the back of the bank and all three gave chase.

It wasn't a long pursuit. After running through two parking lots and jumping a fence, the two suspects broke into a vacant unit of a duplex on Lincoln Avenue just two blocks from the bank. A neighbor heard the commotion, looked over his fence and called police to confirm the suspects' location.

A standoff began shortly after 11 a.m. About 45 law enforcement officers from nine agencies were on hand, including the Ripon and Tracy police departments, the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department and the East Bay Park Police, which sent a helicopter.

Tear gas was tossed into the house about 3:40 p.m. One suspect crawled out unarmed through an attic vent to the roof and was quickly pulled to the ground and subdued by SWAT members.

A second suspect was arrested around 11 p.m., a few hours after a second round of tear gas about three times as potent as the first one was sent into the house.

Earlier in the day, Manteca High School, about three blocks east of the bank, was put on lockdown from about 11 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., when its 1,625 students were evacuated to Lincoln Park behind Lincoln Elementary School, another three blocks east on Yosemite.

Lincoln Elementary was put on a modified lockdown along with two other schools, Manteca Day School and Lindburgh Adult School. A message from the school district told parents about the lockdown situation and directed them to pick up their students at the normal dismissal time.

There was a line of parents 20 deep at Lincoln school by 2 p.m., well before the normal 3:20 release time. A long line of cars blocked Powers Avenue, which borders Lincoln Park on the east, to pick up high school students.

Freshman Danyel Guevara, 14, said being on lockdown in the gym wasn't bad. She said she has been on lockdowns before in elementary school. But the evacuation was a different matter.

"I was scared because I was just out in the open, and I didn't know what the (bank robbery suspect) looked like," she said.

Mary Guevara, her mom, said she got the phone message that the school was in lockdown, all the children were safe and that parents should pick up high schoolers at the park later in the afternoon. But she was there within 30 minutes.

"I went outside and saw the helicopter in the sky," she said. "I wasn't scared, but I was worried. You always want your kids to be safe."

Guevara and Jacqueline Albert, who lives near the duplex, said they knew the resident of the besieged duplex. The woman, they said, gave birth six days ago.

It was unclear if she owned the duplex or rented one of the units.

"It's a good thing she wasn't home," Guevara said.

Bank of America, closed for several hours after the robbery while the police and FBI agents investigated, reopened for business about 3 p.m. Customers said several tellers apparently had been sent home, including the one targeted by the robbers.

It was the second time the bank has been robbed in 18 months. In May 2008, a white male handed a teller a note demanding money. No suspects were arrested in that case.

In Friday's robbery, one suspect was taken to San Joaquin Jail, according to police.

The second suspect was arrested and transported to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for dog bites and gas inhalation from the tear gas, Manteca police spokesman Rex Osborn said.

According to Osborn, police entered the house to extricate the second suspect at around 9 p.m. and secured the downstairs. They then moved upstairs, having been told by the first suspect where he might be hiding.

Officers then put a ladder to the attic door, and a police dog walked up the ladder and into the attic, and held the man there until police secured him.

Osborn said he did not have the names of the suspects available, but that both men were in their 20s.

Bee staff writer Sue Nowicki can be reached at 578-2012 or snowicki@modbee.com.