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The robber, in his late 40s to early 50s, was sedated after surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center, the web site has learned.
“He’s likely to survive,” a law enforcement official told CLIFFVIEW PILOT late Thursday night.
This marks the third time already this year that a police officer from Bergen County has had to shoot an armed assailant in self defense.
“Well done to Rutherford PD and all police [for a] quick and well-planned response,” said a county officer whose stepson attends the Union School across the street from the bank. “If not for the quick response, this could have been worse.”
EXCLUSIVE: A bank robber shot and wounded by police in Rutherford on Thursday has unofficially been tied to at least three other holdups, two in North Bergen and one in Clifton, all in the span of three weeks last year, CLIFFVIEW PILOT has learned. CLICK HERE….
(l. to r.) Investors Bank, Clifton; Valley National, North Bergen (also photo on end); Banco Popular, North Bergen
The robber entered the Chase Bank at 360 Union Ave. around 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.
According to Mike Sheehan of PIX11 NEWS, he pulled a gun and demanded money, sending people scrambling for cover. But a bank employee triggered a silent alarm and police were waiting as the robber emerged.
He, in turn, “forced a woman hostage” out onto the street with him, said Sheehan, a former homicide detective with the New York City Police Department.
Witnesses reported that the robber had turned the corner onto Wells Place and let the woman go when officers ordered him to drop his weapon.
“I was outside and I heard the officer yell to the guy, ‘Drop the gun! Drop the gun!’,” Ron Cedola, whose towing service is next door to the bank, told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “There was a pause of about 30 seconds or so and then I heard three shots — boom! boom! boom!”By this point, Cedola said, he’d ducked down behind a truck.
“Then there was a brief pause and I heard one more shot,” said Cedola,
who has owned the towing service the past 42 years.At that point, he said, he pulled the garage doors down and ran back inside his shop.
The robber “was walked away from here” into an ambulance and taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, an officer at the scene told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. It was later learned that he was struck in the neck, with either the same bullet or another grazing him in the back.
Bergen County Sheriff’s Department officers are guarding him until he can be formally charged and arraigned.No civilians or officers were struck,
Rutherford Police Lt. Robert Kriston told CLIFFVIEW PILOT a short time after the incident. Union School’s nearly 500 students were kept inside and were later dismissed with police escorts from the area.
The bank is across Wells Place from the Rutherford fire station that houses volunteer Rescue Co. #5. It was there that FBI agents interviewed bank employees and customers.
“Since this is now an ongoing federal investigation and the only subject is in custody, there will be no further comment from the FBI (including identification of the subject until he is formally charged), and no photographs released, etc., on this matter,” an FBI spokesman said Thursday afternoon.
In a climate that has become increasingly dangerous for police, this is the third time in Bergen County that an armed assailant forced a police shooting.
Paramus Patrol Officer Rachel Morgan was rescued by her backup, Officer Ryan Hayo, who exchanged shots the night of the Super Bowl just off Route 17 with a man who then turned his gun on himself. The gunman’s family later took him off life support. CLICK HERE FOR THE COVERAGE
Then, on March 12, a man who fired at police with a rifle in Washington Township was shot and killed when he pointed the weapon at an officer less than 20 feet away and pulled the trigger. CLICK HERE FOR THE COVERAGE
ALSO SEE: Federal authorities finally caught up to Augusto G. Perez, who was arrested by the FBI this morning and charged with holding up a Weehawken bank and taking money from a customer and a teller there at gunpoint in late February. He had been on the run since. CLICK HERE
Map & photo: GOOGLE
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