UPDATED: Bank Robbery in Clarendon

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by ARLnow.com June 6, 2011 at 11:54 am 9,023 53 Comments

(Updated at 4:15 p.m.) Police are investigating bank robbery in Clarendon.

A man robbed the BB&T branch at 3001 N. Washington Blvd just before noon, according to police. A witness told officers that the man ran north on N. Garfield Street just after the robbery. Police searched the area, including the Clarendon Metro station, but were unable to locate the suspect.

Police issued the following statement about the robbery this afternoon.

The Arlington County Police Department’s Robbery Unit is seeking the public’s help to identify a man who robbed an Arlington bank this morning.

The suspect entered the BB&T Bank in the 3000 block of Washington Boulevard at approximately 11:50 a.m. on Monday, June 6, 2011. He displayed a note demanding money, and implied a weapon. After receiving cash, the suspect fled on foot.

The suspect is described as a white male in his mid 50’s, 6 foot tall and 180 lbs. At the time of the robbery, he wore baseball cap hat, a red wig, glasses, a white and brown plaid button down shirt and khaki pants.

Anyone who has information about this robbery or the identity of the suspect is asked to call the Arlington County Police Department Tip Line at 703 228-4242, or Detective Donald Fortunato at (703) 228-4197. Det. Fortunato can also be reached by emailat [email protected]

See surveillance images of the suspect on the police department’s web site.

CW

Wow, if I’d been one of the bored paramilitary dudes with compact MP5s that are perpetually guarding the highland st entrance to the DoD building by Mr. Days, I’d have turned that guy into swiss cheese.
- Westover
  
  Sure you would have, Rambo. 😉
  - CW
    
    You don’t think they get sick of holding all that firepower and not getting to let it out once in a while? 🙂
    - LyonSteve
      
      That’s what [s]he said.
      - Aaron
        
        Maybe, but not with certitude.
- JamesE
  
  They are specifically instructed only to open fire upon people leaving Mr. Days.
jay clarendon condos

bank robberies are not why people buy homes in N Arl. Unbelievable.
- CW
  
  Hmm…I’d be willing to trade a few bank robberies for a drop in prices to affordable levels…
- sf
  
  You need to rob a bank to afford a house in N. Arl.
SoArl Resident

OMG…this happened in North Arlington! Oh the humanity!
- doodly
  
  But obviously the robber was from South Arlington…
  - NewsyMom
    
    +1
    - SoArl Resident
      
      =D It’s all a part of our larger plan . . . the South will rise again!
      - bright lights
        
        We’re not worried – we have too many unnatural night lights in North Arlington – you all would get cancer and die in 6 months.
  - Pinko Commie
    
    I thought the new name for South Arlington is L.A. or Lower Arlington.
    - SaveDaveMcKenna
      
      Bajarlington
- PhilL
  
  And I’m sure the robbers are already back in their hideout in South Arlington.
- Westover
  
  The So. Arlington Banks don’t have enough in their vaults to make a robbery worth it…..
JamesE

The police cruiser chasing the suspect ran off the road when the officer tried to use his brand new night vision goggles.
- CW
  
  LOL +1
Clarendude

I almost went there today at lunch ! I hope everyone is OK (assume so since there was no mention). They have a really nice teller staff at that branch too.
- TGEoA
  
  What sort of food does BB&T serve?
  
  Pizza, burgers, cupcakes or froyo?
  - BackAfter20
    
    ROFL +1
NoArl

He’d best stay away from Williamsburg Middle School-they shoot to kill bank robbers ’round theya.
John Fontain

You don’t have to come and confess, we’re lookin for you
We gon find you
- CW
  
  You can run and tell that.
- LMA
  
  thats so scary work at a bank by here but i dont think antwoine dodson would come from alabama just to rob a bank
Melissa

unfortunately the suspect fled the scene wearing the best disguise of khaki shorts and brown flip flops…
- BackAfter20
  
  LOL +1
Cas

Pappas and Utah say they are surfers
- WestoverAndOver
  
  We have a winner!!!
SoCo Resident

Any description besides “armed man.”
(This is the bank that NEVER shovels its sidewalk in the winter. All coming down soon along with the tombstones.)
- huh?
  
  Armed man? That’s not very specific. Pretty much every man I’ve met has arms.
  - TooEasy
    
    But could they run atop them?
- ARLnow.com
  
  ACPD has not confirmed a description of the suspect yet. They’re working to piece together various witness accounts.
Southeast Ben

Conflicting reports with another robbery. That being said, here are the preliminary thoughts on the suspects…
- Detective Strode (John C. McGinley)
  
  clearly you forgot about these suspects, one of them does look enough like a man…
  
  they know how to set it off
SaveDaveMcKenna

Georgetown snobs snicker and say, “This is why we don’t have a metro stop”.
- CW
  
  Yes, because I’m sure the thief took the metro. If he did, that’s where the cops should start checking, because he’s probably still stranded on a broken-down train as we speak.
- Southeast Jerome
  
  I am sure the bank robber would have run into a metro station with cameras everywhere and even more witnesses all over the place…… Besides everyone knows the Money Train doesnt run through Clarendon until after 11:00 PM.
Stan

A description? Really? You telling me that bank didnt have a single working camera?
- ARLnow.com
  
  A link to the bank surveillance photos is provided at the end of the article.
FirstHand

Sounds like the white suspect lives around the corner.. since he escaped so quickly! Needed the money to maintain his North Side Status.
brendan

Great job by the county – sharing high res photos… oh wait, this is a p.o.s.125x168px off-angle shot. What is this, a picture for ants?

Not really helpful. Why spend all this money on high tech crap when they’re still learning how to post pictures of suspects online?

btw – any info on how much the county spent on redoing their website? redoing their newsroom? etc?
- Bob
  
  “Great job by the county”?? Umm, the photos are obtained from the bank’s camera system, not any “high tech crap” owned by the county.. They can only go with what is available, and security systems are the exclusive domain of the individual businesses. No amount of “high tech crap” can make a poor quality recording any better…. so best to redirect your baseless rant elsewhere…
  - brendan
    
    Hi Bob,
    
    You clearly have no idea about digital images, photo software or image editing. Hopefully you’re not the guy in charge of putting these images together over there!
    
    So let’s just say, even if that crappy jpg was the best they had, it takes 30 seconds using freeware to do a basic enlarge/enhance to get it to 3x the size….. 15-20 min of fiddling w/ licensed software you should have something fairly decent and 5x the size, a little more or less depending on the original image or video quality and format.
    - Mr. Peanuts
      
      Brendan- I believe they’re hiring and in need of someone with your talents. Or you could just keep bitching and criticizing from the comfort of your brown flip-flops, making generalizations not based on actual factual knowledge. From what you tell us, there is no reason they can’t take any image gathered anywhere at any time on any imaging medium and create an excellent image with which to clearly identify an individual….. come to think of it, I, too, saw that episode of 24!!
      - Brendan
        
        Hi Mr. Peanuts…
        
        I’m not talking 24 here.. I’ve actually never seen it.
        
        A 125px image is simply not useful to the news media who would be helpful in publicizing this, (though they often go ahead and do a quick enlarge) and limits the chances that a concerned citizen would be able to recognize the person involved.
        
        I’d be glad to help, tho i have no real talent, or high tech software… pretty sure i can put together something more useful than that image. Please send me the raw footage or stills, non-cropped and in the original format and i will use readily available free-ware to do it. brendanftw [at] ymail.com
        
        thank you,
        
        brendan
MC

Arlington seems to have a number of bank robberies. There are so many bank branches, that so often have no customers in them at all. You see security at the Apple store, but at a bank?
- Bob
  
  The ‘hoodies from DC & PG aren’t rolling into the Arlington banks to thieve & rob… rather, they roll into high-priced crap stores like Apple…thus the visible security contingent…
G::TheNativeArlingtonian

If the photos are any indicator its no wonder he wasn’t found. Very easy to blend in. And those photos barely show his face at all! Useless.
RH Clarendon

I stopped in the branch about 10 minutes after it happened, trying to make a deposit. It looked like a robbery at the time, but I wasn’t sure. Just asked the officers if the bank was closed and they said “yes” and told me to “be careful” as I left on my scooter. Would have been nice to know there was an armed person on foot in the area. Yikes. Can’t belive someone would rob the bank so close to the armed DoD building.
- LyonSteve
  
  Lots of armed people are on foot in that area. In fact, some have sub machine guns.

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