Suspect in custody after Elgin bank robbery
Some police officers never get to help catch a bank robber in the course of their careers, but Elgin Police Officer Josh Miller can boast doing that on his second day solo on the job.
Miller and two veteran Elgin police officers nabbed a 30-year-old Carol Stream man just five minutes after getting a call at 9:16 a.m. Tuesday morning that Old Second National Bank on Route 20 at Nesler Road had been robbed, Elgin Police Cmdr. Glenn Theriault said.
No one was injured in the robbery, which ended when police spotted the man at 9:21 a.m. on Route 20 at the other end of town, near the Bartlett border. The man was apprehended without incident, police said.
Four employees — two men and two women — were in the bank when the man, armed with a gun, jumped the counter and demanded money, Theriault said, adding that the man was wearing a mask of some sort.
The FBI, which has taken over the investigation, has not yet released the man’s identity, Theriault said.
The man left with an undisclosed amount of cash in a white Toyota Camry with temporary license plates, and was spotted at 9:21 a.m. by Elgin Police Officer Eric Echevarria, who was stationed at Route 20 and Shales Parkway.
Echevarria was joined by Miller, and both turned on their emergency lights and followed the vehicle as it turned south on Lambert Lane and into the parking lot of Estes Express Lines.
Echevarria, a 14-year-veteran of the department and a member of its Resident Officer Program, ordered the man out of the vehicle, with the assistance of Miller and officer Bob Henke, a 16-year veteran.
The man complied without resistance, Echevarria said.
“Your training kicks in,” he said. “You go in and you’re ready to go grab this guy, hoping nothing happens.”
Miller said this is the kind of thing he never expected to happen right after finishing his police training in Elgin.
“It might be the only one of my career,” he said.
The robber followed the rules of the road during his getaway, even stopping at a red light near the bank, Theriault added. He was driving a Hertz rental car with temporary license plates that did not belong to the car.
Elgin police also credited the bank’s employees, who had participated in a police training program aimed at giving good descriptions in such incidents. One of the female employees had even written details about the crime on note cards, police said.
Elgin Police Chief Jeff Swoboda praised the officers’ actions.
“We have a great deal of technology that we use to think about where crime might occur, but, at the end of the day it’s just good, old-fashioned police work.”
Swoboda also touted Elgin’s decreasing crime rates, which he said are at a 40-year low.
The last bank robbery in Elgin took place in June 2012 at the TCF Bank inside the Jewel-Osco store on Larkin Avenue.