LITTLE ROCK — A man triggered a two hour-long bomb scare in the heart of the Heights business district in Little Rock on Friday after robbing a bank and leaving behind a suspicious looking green backpack.
About 10 a.m., Little Rock police arrived at the U.S. Bank branch at 5200 Kavanaugh Blvd., where bank employees told police a robber - who fled with an undisclosed amount of cash - set a bag just inside the bank’s foyer and declared it contained a bomb.
Although the bomb eventually proved to be fake, Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said officers evacuated the building and set up a two-block perimeter around the bank, blocking traffic and notifying neighbors of the purported threat.
The Little Rock Fire Department’s bomb squad, as well as FBI agents, spent the next two hours determining whether the bank robber’s “bomb” was a bluff, according to bomb squad commander Capt. Edwin Woolf.
After knocking the bag over with a “disrupter,” bomb-squad investigators said it wasn’t a bomb, but a set of “components” made to look like a bomb.
“If they say it’s a bomb, we’ll always assume the worst and work our way back,” Woolf said.
The suspect, identified by police as Daniel Wheelis, a 48-year-old homeless man, pulled out a cell phone after entering the bank and announced the robbery, according to police reports.
Hastings said the half dozen people inside were off-put by the man’s “odd behavior” and didn’t react immediately.
“I guess I’m going to have to do this the hard way,” the suspect said, according to police. He then said “activate” into the phone, as though it might trigger the explosive, reports said.
Wheelis was last seen running north from the bank. Hastings said an arrest warrant has been issued for Wheelis - described as a white man with a goatee, wearing a gray sweatshirt over a red shirt. While the warrant lists charges of aggravated robbery and theft of property, Hastings said Wheelis will likely face federal charges for the robbery and bomb threat.
In May 2004, Wheelis negotiated guilty pleas to robbery and felony theft of property in a July 2003 robbery in Little Rock.
Friday’s robbery disrupted surrounding businesses and residents as well.
Rachael Crosby, owner of the nearby Scallions restaurant, was busy preparing for the lunch rush when she heard a flurry of sirens outside her window.
“We had so many robberies [in the area] this year, I told [the staff] to lock the doors,” Crosby said. “Then they brought in the bomb squad, [and] their K-9 unit, we knew something was different [about this robbery] ... it got scary fast.”
By 11 a.m., bomb-squad technicians wearing 95-pound blast suits approached the entrance of the deserted bank with X-ray equipment and took a series of X-rays for analysis.
The initial pictures showed “some wires ... circuits,” Hastings said, but investigators were still unclear whether there was an active explosive in the bag. But, the presence of the circuitry was cause enough for police to widen their perimeter. Officers then evacuated roughly 75 people from the residences and businesses closest to the bank.
At 11:45 a.m., a bomb-squad technician set up a “disrupter” apparatus inside the bank, a remote-controlled device that can fire a water-powered projectile with enough force to open any kind of bomb container.
A few minutes later, fire crews yelled “Fire in the hole,” and the scene went silent, followed by a loud bang, as they fired the “disrupter.”
By 12:15 p.m., the bomb technician walked out of the bank for the final time, waving to the dozens of investigators, bomb-squad specialists and paramedics that the bomb was a ruse.
Although Woolf declined to elaborate, Hastings said the unidentified suspect intentionally “rigged” the bag to look like a bomb.
The threat of explosives interfered with the police response. Instead of having patrol officers looking for the suspect, Hastings said, some had to be redirected to the bank to set up a perimeter around a potential explosion.
As rare as it was, Friday’s robbery wasn’t the first time someone said they had a bomb.
In November 2002, two different robbers used fake bombs to rob two Regions Bank branches in Little Rock.
“This is a little unusual,” Hastings said. “We’ve not had a bank robbery like this for some time.”
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 02/11/2012