Olympia police arrest man accused of robbing KeyBank
Olympia police have arrested a 24-year-old Tacoma man accused of robbing a KeyBank on Martin Way Tuesday.
He was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of first-degree robbery and was booked into Thurston County jail. The man allegedly walked into the Olympia bank at 1:18 p.m. and implied he was armed as he asked the teller to hand over cash from their drawer, Lt. Paul Lower said. Nobody was hurt in the incident, he added.
In a tweet, police described the suspect as 5 foot 7 inches tall and in his mid 20s to early 30s with a beard. Surveillance footage shows the man wearing a mask over his beard with white sunglasses and a red baseball cap.
Lower said police responded to the scene shortly after he ran away from the bank. A K9 unit tracked the man for about five blocks east of the bank to a cul-de-sac but failed to track him further. He later turned himself in to investigators after detectives closed in on him, court documents show.
A probable cause statement describes law enforcement’s investigation into the incident.
Witnesses and surveillance footage revealed the man walked into the bank and handed the teller a note that read, “Keep calm I am Armed!! 20 Sec to give me all monies in the Drawer! Return Note! No dye packs! No bait packs.”
The teller handed the man $400 and he walked out. The amount he took included $80 of bait money in $20 denominations, according to the statement. Banks record the serial numbers on such bills so they can share this information with law enforcement in the event of a robbery.
A Thurston County Sheriff K9 unit tracked the man to the 3000 block of Griffin Lane SE where he likely left in a vehicle, the statement read. Detectives canvassed the area for surveillance footage and found video of the man jumping a fence toward KeyBank. They also found another video of the car the man drove and recorded its license plate.
The license plate number led detectives to the car’s registered owner., according to the statement. They interviewed the owner’s parents who told them someone else had been using the car for months. After showing the parents surveillance footage from the incident, the parent’s identified the person.
The parents then called the owner of the car. Soon after, the man police believe to have robbed the bank called the detectives, the statement read. He arranged to meet with them at the Southcenter Mall to talk about what he did in Olympia.
When detectives met the man, they noted he still drove the car seen in the surveillance footage. The detectives arrested him on the spot without incident, the statement read.
A search of the man’s car did not uncover the stolen cash, according to the statement. The man reportedly told detectives he had already gotten “rid of it all.”
Pretrial services identified the man as a veteran with no known criminal convictions. He is due to appear in Thurston County Superior Court on Thursday for his preliminary appearance.
The Olympian does not identify people accused of a crime before they appear in court.
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
