09-07-2007, 08:01 PM
Another Coral Gables bank is robbed
Posted on Fri, Sep. 07, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
By ELAINE DE VALLE
edevalle@MiamiHerald.com
A week after the Bank of America in downtown Coral Gables was robbed, another financial institution a few blocks away was struck -- this one in the building where the city's mayor works and maintains his business account.
A man walked into the AmTrust Bank at 2701 Ponce de Leon Blvd., about 11:40 a.m. Friday, displayed a silver-and-black handgun and robbed three different tellers, police said.
''He asked for 50s and 100s,'' said Gables Police spokesman Javier Bruzos. ``He was wearing layered clothing -- multiple shirts and stuff like that.''
The bandit left through the bank's rear door, Bruzos said. It was not immediately known how much money was taken.
As of early Friday afternoon, police still had not seen a bank surveillance video to compare the robber to one captured on video Aug. 31.
The descriptions of the two robbers ''are close to each other,'' Bruzos said. Friday's robber was described as a black man, six feet tall with long, curly hair. The suspect in last week's robbery is described as a biracial male, about 6-feet-2, with a fade haircut. He was wearing long cargo khaki shorts, a white T-shirt and tennis shoes. That robber is suspected in two other robberies, on in the Gables and one in northern Miami-Dade.
Last week's take at the Bank of America was $10,000.
Friday's robbery occurred on the first floor of the office building where Gables Mayor Don Slesnick has his law firm on the second floor.
''My secretary called me to tell me the building was swarmed by police,'' said Slesnick, an ambassador for the U.S. Army Reserve, as he drove Friday afternoon south on Florida's Turnpike from a National Guard and Reserve awards ceremony in Orlando.
''I was shocked,'' Slesnick said about the robbery. ``It's incredible that in broad daylight in Coral Gables in 2007 we have bank robbers. It's kind of scary. I used to watch bank robbers in westerns thinking that was the 1800s.''
Posted on Fri, Sep. 07, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
By ELAINE DE VALLE
edevalle@MiamiHerald.com
A week after the Bank of America in downtown Coral Gables was robbed, another financial institution a few blocks away was struck -- this one in the building where the city's mayor works and maintains his business account.
A man walked into the AmTrust Bank at 2701 Ponce de Leon Blvd., about 11:40 a.m. Friday, displayed a silver-and-black handgun and robbed three different tellers, police said.
''He asked for 50s and 100s,'' said Gables Police spokesman Javier Bruzos. ``He was wearing layered clothing -- multiple shirts and stuff like that.''
The bandit left through the bank's rear door, Bruzos said. It was not immediately known how much money was taken.
As of early Friday afternoon, police still had not seen a bank surveillance video to compare the robber to one captured on video Aug. 31.
The descriptions of the two robbers ''are close to each other,'' Bruzos said. Friday's robber was described as a black man, six feet tall with long, curly hair. The suspect in last week's robbery is described as a biracial male, about 6-feet-2, with a fade haircut. He was wearing long cargo khaki shorts, a white T-shirt and tennis shoes. That robber is suspected in two other robberies, on in the Gables and one in northern Miami-Dade.
Last week's take at the Bank of America was $10,000.
Friday's robbery occurred on the first floor of the office building where Gables Mayor Don Slesnick has his law firm on the second floor.
''My secretary called me to tell me the building was swarmed by police,'' said Slesnick, an ambassador for the U.S. Army Reserve, as he drove Friday afternoon south on Florida's Turnpike from a National Guard and Reserve awards ceremony in Orlando.
''I was shocked,'' Slesnick said about the robbery. ``It's incredible that in broad daylight in Coral Gables in 2007 we have bank robbers. It's kind of scary. I used to watch bank robbers in westerns thinking that was the 1800s.''