niedbala@observer-reporter.com
MT. MORRIS - A man armed with a handgun robbed the Mt. Morris branch of National City Bank Wednesday morning and then attempted to enter a nearby floral shop before fleeing on foot down an alley.
This is the second time in two years gunmen have robbed the bank.
The man, wearing a ski mask, entered the bank at the corner of Mt. Morris Road and Main Street at 9:30 a.m., brandished a handgun and demanded money, state police said.
Police described the robber as more than 6 feet tall with a slender build. They said he left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash.
State police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the robbery and ask anyone with information to call the Waynesburg state police barracks at 724-627-6151.
State police cars patrolled the streets of Mt. Morris for about an hour following the robbery.
Businesses in the small community locked their doors after word of the robbery quickly spread, apparently from those with police scanners.
Several witnesses said the man left the bank and ran west on Main Street, stopping to try to enter Tim's Floral and Gift Shop a block away.
Alicia Smith, manager of the floral shop, said she received a telephone call from her boyfriend's mother, who urged her to lock the door because the bank had been robbed and the robber was on the loose.
"I hung up the phone and locked the door, and he was there," Smith said, pointing toward the store's front windows.
A man dressed in black pounded on the front windows then tried to open the door.
Smith said she moved her 62-year-old mother into a storage room for protection. "I tried to get her out of the way. She was crying and shaking all over."
The man quickly disappeared, running down Walnut Street at the side of her building. Smith said she didn't get a good look at the man. "All I saw was black; he was moving fast."
Smith said she, too, was shaken up by the incident. "It's hard to tell what he might have done if he'd got in here," she said.
Mike Blake, who was working outside about a block away from the bank at Roush Motors, said he saw the man come out of the bank.
The man was dressed in black, he said. Blake couldn't tell if the man had a gun. He said he watched the man run down Main Street to the floral shop.
Suzy John, an employee at Belko Foods, said the store manager locked the door immediately after someone came in and reported the bank had been robbed.
"I'm just glad he didn't come in here," she said. "I would have been scared to death."
The bank was last robbed on Feb. 26, 2007. In that robbery, two men wearing black ski masks, one with a gun, took an undisclosed amount of money and fled in a dark, four-door sedan.
Several Mt. Morris residents said Wednesday that the area has seen an sharp increase in crime.
A rash of burglaries and other crimes recently spurred the formation of a neighborhood crime watch. About 120 people attended a meeting on the watch in February.