Police: Suspect in Wheaton bank standoff is dead

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By The Associated Press | Friday, September 5, 2008 6:17 PM CDT | () comments

UPADATED: WHEATON, Ill. — A man who wrested a gun from a police officer and took a dozen hostages in a bank in suburban Chicago died after shooting himself in the head, police said.

   The standoff began after a Wheaton police officer responded to a call of a hit and run accident near the bank. When they arrived, the suspect held a knife to the officer's throat and during an struggle, took the officer's gun then ran into the bank, Deputy Chief Thomas Meloni said.

   The man, whose identity was not immediately released, took 12 hostages and later released 10, Meloni said.

   After he pulled the blinds and stopped talking on the phone to negotiators, officers heard a single gun shot, prompting them to rush in, Meloni said.





Authorities: 'Hostage situation' at Illinois bank

WHEATON, Ill. — A suspect took at least one person hostage in a bank on Friday, forcing a standoff with police and prompting the evacuation of nearby office buildings and businesses, authorities said.

   City officials in Wheaton, 20 miles west of Chicago, released a statement saying that there was a ``hostage situation'' that involved one suspect at the Wheaton Bank and Trust.

   A nearby business owner, Sue Givens, told CLTV News that police had ordered her salon locked down around 1:40 p.m. Givens said police told her ``somebody was in the bank with a gun.''

   Ross Rice, a spokesman for the Chicago office of the FBI, said the standoff didn't start with a robbery or attempted robbery of the bank. He declined to comment further.

   A spokeswoman for Central DuPage Hospital, Amy Steinbruecker, said the hospital treated and released a police officer for minor injuries who had had an altercation with the suspect before the suspect ran into the bank.

   Cathy Valemte and Tracy Morse, who work a block from the bank, said there was a high-speed chase on the street and that police cars and armed officers flooded the area shortly thereafter.

   Morris said she heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the bank at about 4 p.m.

   A Wheaton Police Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the standoff.

   Television footage showed dozens of people running from the four-story bank building, which includes other businesses, with their hands above their heads.

   ``We locked our office door, turned off the lights, drew the blinds,'' said Donna Price, 52, who works in the office building. ``Then we heard a knock on the door and it was a SWAT guy. He told us to get out right now.''

   Price said police held people in a stairwell of the building before ordering them out.

   ``We all had to put our hands up on the back of our heads and run,'' Price said from a convenience store across the street from the bank, where more than 100 people had gathered. She said police taking those in the store from the area by bus.

   Train traffic on the Union Pacific West line that passes through the city was briefly halted.

   Messages left for the DuPage County Sheriff's Office were not immediately returned.