Would-be heist ends in shower of money

Published 10:22 pm Tuesday, November 13, 2007

LYNNWOOD — When police confronted a suspected bank robber as he attempted to make his getaway, he was so surprised he threw a fistful of cash into the air like a bunch of confetti.

Police won’t say exactly how much money came raining down.

“It was somewhere between one bill and a ticker-tape parade,” FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs said Tuesday. “It took them a while to gather all the money up.”

FBI agents and police had the man under surveillance when he walked into a Lynnwood bank on Nov. 7 and allegedly gave tellers a note demanding money, Burroughs said.

FBI agents believe the man, 40, of Fall City, is connected to three September bank robberies in Redmond and Issaquah, Burroughs said. The man has a history of crime, including time spent in federal prison on a bank robbery conviction.

FBI agents worked with police from Lynnwood and Seattle to set up surveillance of the man last week at a Lynnwood motel, she said.

Agents were watching when the man drove off with a friend and headed south for Seattle, then turned around and came back north, Burroughs said.

“Everyone that followed had the idea in their mind that they might be looking for a bank to rob,” she said. “Sure enough, that’s what happened.”

Around 1:30 p.m., the man parked about a block from the Washington Federal Savings Bank in the 5800 block of 196th Street SW, Burroughs said.

Since agents believed that the man had not used a weapon in the September holdups, they decided to let him go into the bank.

“It was a risk that they took, but it paid off because now the guy’s in custody. He’s not robbing banks,” Burroughs said.

The man likely will face federal bank robbery charges, she said.

It won’t be the first time, court records show. He served more than four years in prison for a 1999 bank robbery, documents show.

FBI agents now are scouring evidence from bank robberies nationwide to see if the man could be responsible for additional crimes, Burroughs said.

Last week’s arrest wasn’t the first time local FBI agents have watched while a man under their surveillance robbed a bank, Burroughs said.

“It doesn’t happen very often, and when it does it’s pretty exciting,” she said.