Reading Stop & Shop Robber Suspected in Other Area Robberies
Police may be dealing with a serial bank robber.
The man police say robbed the Stop & Shop in Reading in June may have had some practice over the past few weeks.
Police believe the same man may have robbed banks in North Andover, Chelmsford and Salem, N.H., recently.
The suspect walked into the Citizens Bank at Stop & Shop in North Andover Saturday at about 4:30 p.m. and demanded the tellers give him money, saying he had explosives in the bank. One teller told him to take off his sunglasses and the man fled without getting any cash. Police and fire crews did a sweep of the store and made sure there were no explosives, and the building was reopened for business within an hour.
On July 2, there was a similar incident in Salem, N.H., when a man walked into the Citizens Bank at Shaw's on South Broadway that afternoon and handed the teller a note saying he had a bomb and a hostage and demanding money.
Police described that suspect as a white male between 25 to 35 years old, wearing a black shirt, glasses and a hat. And in surveillance photos, the man resembles the suspect in this past weekend's North Andover robbery.
And this past Thursday, a man matching that description -- and looking like the man in the other cases -- reportedly robbed the Citizens Bank at Stop & Shop on Chelmsford Street in Chelmsford.
That man passed a note to a teller demanding money, police said, and he fled with an undetermined amount of cash in a newer model vehicle, possibly a Nissan Altima or similar, gray or gold.
Police suspect the same man may have committed the robberies in all of these cases. Not only do the surveillance photos all look like the same person, but each robbery has had similar methods of operation.
Dave Miskinis
11:25 am on Monday, July 16, 2012
"I'm here to rob the bank and I've got explosives..." said the robber.
"Take off your sunglasses" said the teller. Robber flees...........
Hats off to those tellers!!! I hope the bank rewards them appropriately.
Joe Veno
6:49 am on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
This teller could of put a lot of other people in danger if this wacko had explosives.
Dave Miskinis
7:53 am on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Joe,
In all your years, how many guys robbing local banks or grocery stores actually had a real gun, let alone actual explosives? Come on.
Don
12:38 pm on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
What just recently happened in Woburn? Did those robbers have guns? YEAH. This teller was stupid and very, very lucky. If this were a professional, people would have gotten shot.
Joe Veno
10:11 am on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Dave, i know what you are saying. But what if he did ???
Readingite
3:59 pm on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
As tellers we are told to ask people to remove hat and hoods. They did what they should have.
Joe Veno
4:44 pm on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Readingite, I know you are to ask someone on a regular transaction to remove them. But are you told to ask them to remove them when they say it is a robbery and they say they have weapons or a bomb.?
Phil Harmonic
9:51 pm on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
We'll soon hear that the teller got fired for not following protocol during a robbery attempt.
Readingite
3:22 pm on Wednesday, July 18, 2012
In the article it say one teller asked that does not mean it was the teller he was at. It happens all the time in the bank a customer comes in and goes to one teller and another will ask to remove. So the other one might not have seen the note.