Sometimes tracking down a suspect just takes a stroke of luck.
Just after 5:30 pm on New Year’s Eve, a man wearing a black hoodie walked into the US Bank near Broadway and E. John Street and handed the teller a note, which said the suspect had a bomb and wanted cash.
After the teller handed over the money, the suspect fled the bank.
The suspect was gone by the time police arrived, but officers were able to get pictures of the hoodie-clad man from the bank’s surveillance system, and circulated his photo at the East Precinct.
The next day, just after 12:30 pm, a woman flagged down two officers on patrol near E. Pike Street and Bellevue Avenue. The woman told officers she had seen a man lying in the entryway to a car dealership at 11th and Pike, “having a good time with himself.”
Officers found the man sitting in the doorway, and realized he looked a lot like the guy from the bank robbery.
When officers approached the man and mentioned they’d gotten a complaint that he was “playing with himself” in public, he told them he’d simply been trying to hide money in his pants.
At this point, officers were pretty sure this was the same guy from the bank robbery a day earlier, matched him up with the surveillance pictures, and arrested him.
They found a bunch of money crammed into his pockets and hidden in the soles of his shoes.
Officers brought the suspect down to headquarters to meet with detectives, who booked the man into the King County Jail for investigation of robbery.