Two bank robberies that occurred six days apart appear to be the work of the same man, police said Friday.
According to an Evanston Police Department crime report, a man robbed a LaSalle Bank branch in Evanston on Thursday, fleeing with $1000 in cash.
Police believe the suspect is the same person who on Nov. 4 robbed National City Bank, 1633 Chicago Ave., just three blocks up the street from LaSalle.
The man entered LaSalle, 1336 Chicago Ave., through the street entrance at about 9:07 a.m. This was just seven minutes after the bank opened and there were no customers inside at the time, according to a police report.
The man gave a note to the teller that said, “This is a robbery. Give me $1,000.00 in large bills,” the report said.
The teller gave him 10 $100 bills and handed him the note back. The robber then left the bank through the same door he came in and walked south, according to EPD.
The suspect did not say anything during the robbery and never implied that he had a weapon, the report stated.
The LaSalle and National City bank robberies were captured on video and the robber in both instances appeared to be the same man, said Cmdr. James Pickett of EPD.
The wording of both demand notes was exactly the same, Pickett said.
The National City Bank robbery also occurred at roughly the same time of day, at 9:30 a.m. The robber then also demanded $1,000.
LaSalle Bank was robbed on May 12, but Pickett said that was an unrelated case. A man who lives less than a block from the bank was arrested in connection with the robbery just 30 minutes after the incident, according to EPD.
There were at least two other bank robberies in Evanston this year, Pickett said. On April 25, a woman robbed the TCF Bank inside Jewel, 1128 Chicago Ave., of an unknown amount of money. On July 16, two men held up then-Bank One, 635 Chicago Ave., and stole about $66,880, according to EPD.
The Bank One robbery likely is unrelated to this month’s robberies because a gun was used in the earlier incident and customers were told to get on the floor, Pickett said.
Because robbing a bank is a federal crime, the FBI was notified of the recent incidents, but EPD is leading the investigation, he said.
-GREG HAFKIN
