A suspect accused of robbing a Forest Hill bank was arrested in Fallston Thursday afternoon following a brief chase aided by a Baltimore County police helicopter.
The robbery took place at approximately 4:45 p.m. at the PNC Bank branch in the 2300 block of Rock Spring Road in Forest Hill, according to Harford County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Monica Worrell. A suspect, described by police as a skinny white male approximately 25 years old and six feet, two inches tall entered the building, demanded cash, and fled in a car.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, a Baltimore County Police Department Aviation Unit was in the air at the time the incident was reported, and was able to track the suspect’s vehicle. Sheriff’s Office deputies and Maryland State Police troopers on the ground set up a perimeter and were able to locate the suspect through aviation’s visual cues, despite heavy traffic and multiple avenues of escape, Worrell said.
At approximately 5:15 p.m., less than 30 minutes after the robbery occurred, the suspect was apprehended without incident by deputies in the 400 block of Whitaker Mill Road in Fallston, near the Wal-Mart on Bel Air Road. He did not have a weapon at the time of his arrest, police said.
UPDATE: The suspect has been identified as David William Hayes, 28, of Bel Air. He is charged with robbery, and theft over $1,000 and under $10,000 in connection with the robbery. Hayes is being held at the Harford County Detention Center on $1,000,000 bond.
One individual who witnessed the suspect’s arrest, Timothy Fowler of Joppa, said it looked like “every cop in Harford County” was on the scene. After being stuck in traffic on Route 1 for about 20 minutes as the event unfolded, Fowler snapped a photo of the suspect being detained and handcuffed across the truck of a police car on Whitaker Mill Road. He also said a police helicopter was flying “aggressively” overhead during the incident.
David William Hayes (Courtesy of Harford County Sheriff’s Office.)
Rock Spring Road runs to Fallston? lol
Seems like wbal also misindentified the locations. The PNC bank was in Forest Hill and the suspect entered the Walmart in Fallston (about 4 miles away).
The photo above appears to have been taken on Whitaker Mill Rd. in FALLSTON
(The photo on the wbal site states Forest Hill; however, it is actually a photo of the front of the FALLSTON WalMart.)
Isn’t US Route 1 in Fallston two lanes wide?
I would say that per mapquest the 2300 block of RockSpring Road is in Forest Hill, I’m not sure where the spokesperson from the police department got Fallston?. Good job by our police to catch this moron. It looks like Old Joppa Road is the Road they are on in the picture, definitely not US Rt 1.
Typo on my part, folks. Fixed now.
Thanks Aaron as always keep up the good work!
They arrested the guy in the woods behind Walmart. He had tons of money in his pockets and a gym bag full of cash too. The suspect never had a weapon.
Standard COPS defense:
Those weren’t his pants, and he was holding the bag for a friend.
I can back up Scanner Dude. I had just left the parking lot and got passed by the officers on their way in. I probably passed the suspects on the road. I figured something huge was up and flipped on my scanner too. Apparently an eye witness reported the presence of an “assault rifle” which was apparently in the hands of a state trooper who was on scene.
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a weapon. Just not the one reported.
I’m glad no one was hurt. Stuff like this could always go a different way.
-Fatty Pockets
The photo is Whitaker mill road not old Joppa, right by my house… He did have a weapon in walmart
The picture is on Whitaker Mill, I took it. The police did have a rifle-like weapon that I’d never seen before. I also swear I heard a shot, but it didn’t sound like any gun I’ve heard before. I take that back, it sounded like a loud paintball gun. But it may have been anything.
Hopefully that was the sound of a wood shampoo.
He never had a guy a mother saw a a cop, who she thought was the subject, with a rifle. She called it in
He’s a career criminal. I hope he gets a long enough sentence to really mean something this time.