A Little Rock teen was arrested Wednesday night in connection with the afternoon robbery of a northwest Little Rock bank in which an employee was shot and wounded.
Tyrone Randolph
Tyrone Randolph, 16, was charged as an adult with aggravated robbery, theft of property and criminal attempt to commit murder, police spokesman Lt. Steven McClanahan said. Randolph was arrested at 6:35 p.m. in North Little Rock, McClanahan said.
Little Rock police responded shortly before 2 p.m. to a Bank of America branch at 14519 Cantrell Road east of Taylor Loop Road. A man armed with a shotgun and wearing a black and white Halloween clown mask walked into the bank, pointed a shotgun at a teller and demanded money, according to a police report. As the man was leaving, he turned and fired a single shot, hitting employee Sammie Lewis, 43, in the right shoulder. He then fled on foot, the report said.
Lewis, according to the report, was taken to Baptist Health Medical Center, and McClanahan said his injuries were not life-threatening.
After the robbery, police cordoned off the area surrounding the bank, a busy section of Cantrell Road with shopping centers and restaurants to the north and neighborhoods to the south. Officers, some armed with AR-15 rifles, searched the neighborhoods "very closely" for the robber but made no arrests, McClanahan said.
Officers carried the rifles as a precaution, he said.
Others in the area were careful, as well. Scott Swander, who works at Synergy Wealth Management next door to the bank, locked the doors to the business after the robbery.
"Just being safe," he said. "You never know."
From Swander's office, a large bullet hole could be seen in a bank window.
Just west of the robbery, a Regions Bank branch at 14920 Cantrell Road locked its doors, as well, police spokesman Richard Hilgeman said. Police rushed to the bank about 2:45 p.m. after receiving a report of a suspicious person. Officers soon found the person -- a black man wearing a black hoodie, khaki pants and backpack -- standing at the corner of Taylor Loop and Cantrell roads.
Officers placed the man, whom they did not identify, in a patrol car and drove him away, but Hilgeman said the man was not arrested. Hilgeman didn't have further information.
At the Bank of America branch, as police investigated, employees gathered across the street in a church parking lot off Jerry Road. Some hugged each other and cried while recounting the holdup. They declined to speak to a reporter, referring questions to a corporate spokesman. The spokesman had not responded to a request for comment Wednesday.
The bank holdup is the first involving a shooting since 2006, McClanahan said. That year, on Dec. 23, a man walked into a Metropolitan National Bank branch on Rodney Parham Road and killed a teller, 25-year-old James Garison. The robber, Grover Evans, then 18, was sentenced to life in prison for capital murder.
"It is out of the ordinary," McClanahan said of Wednesday's holdup. "We had six bank robberies, to put it in perspective, last year. Out of those six bank robberies, we didn't have anyone that was shot. It doesn't happen that often. ... Most of the time, people that rob a bank, they do a note or say they have a weapon, and they just leave the area."
The FBI's Little Rock field office also responded to the robbery Wednesday. Agency spokesman Debra Green said it's standard procedure in bank robberies.
McClanahan said Little Rock police arrested Randolph in North Little Rock after he was spotted driving a red Lexus that police said was connected to the robbery.
The investigation continues and McClanahan said Wednesday night that more arrests are possible.
Metro on 01/07/2016