6-28-2024 2:25am

Quick Acting Saline Police Catch and Arrest Bank Robbery Suspect in Minutes

It took police officers just 11 minutes to apprehend the suspect in a bank robbery in the City of Saline on Thursday.

A press release from the Saline Police Chief Marlene Radzik clarified the details of the chaotic events.

Around 9:30 a.m., according to police, a 41-year-old Saline man entered the Old National Bank at 200 North Maple Road and allegedly handed a note to a bank teller demanding money. The suspect implied he was armed with a weapon, according to the press release.

The man fled the store, running southeast and got into a white truck.

Metro Dispatch called police to the scene around 9:31 a.m. with a description of the subject.

Within a moment of the first dispatch, the suspect exited the white truck and ran southbound across Michigan Avenue near the CVS store.

Police Officer Morgan Seija, known to many children in the community because of her work as the school resource officer in several Saline schools, was investigating a nearby crash on Michigan Avenue when she saw a man matching the description running across Michigan Avenue near Maple Road. She chased the man on foot. Officer Jennifer Schoenich arrived in the area and joined the pursuit.

The suspect ran into the Saline Inn Restaurant on Michigan Avenue. According to a waitress at the restaurant, he came in and sat in a booth as if he was waiting for someone. Then he got up, bolted through the kitchen and ran out the back door.

Shortly after exiting the restaurant, the suspect was arrested at Bemis Road east of Old Creek Drive.

The experience left some witnesses shaken up.

"My hand is still shaking," the waitress said.

Another waitress at the restaurant used humor to deal with the experience.

"I'm going to put a 'marked safe' in my Facebook profile," she joked before reflection. "But seriously, what's going on in Saline lately?"

At one point during the ordeal, on the scanner radio audio files, a police officer could be heard yelling, presumably at the suspect, to "Put your hands up."

One Saline mom, Kelly Robson, said her nine-year-old son watched police draw their gun on the suspect.

"Happy that's all he had to see, and there was no gunfire," she said.

Additional police officers from Pittsfield Township, the City of Milan and the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department heard the events unfold over the Metro Dispatch radio system and quickly arrived to assist Saline police with the arrest and search for evidence and witnesses.

"The Saline Police Department wishes to thank the Metro Dispatch staff and our neighboring police agencies for their professionalism and assistance with this incident," Radzik said.

Radzik also praised the work of officers Seija and Schoenich.

"The female team rocked it," Radzik said.

The case remains an ongoing investigation so some details cannot be publicly disclosed now, Radzik said.

The suspect is being held at the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office jail.

Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to call Saline Police Department Detective Bill Standford at 734-429-7911.