Area bank robbed
The PNC Bank branch in Bentleyville was closed Wednesday after a bank robbery.
BENTLEYVILLE – A gunman robbed a PNC Bank branch in Bentleyville Wednesday morning shortly after the local high school and one in a neighboring community evacuated buildings upon receiving false bomb threats.
The FBI later in the day served subpoenas to obtain records of the incoming telephone calls that morning to the Bentworth and California Area school districts as part of the investigation into the 9:57 a.m. robbery at the bank at 195 Wilson Road, local police and school officials confirmed.
FBI spokeswoman Kelly Kochamba in Pittsburgh said Wednesday afternoon it was too early to determine if the robbery suspect used the bomb threats to divert police from the bank.
No one was injured when a white man in his 20s or 30s wearing a ball cap, hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and sunglasses robbed the bank of an undisclosed amount of money, the FBI said. He is 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, has a medium build and a beard and mustache.
The robber in surveillance photos released by the FBI is shown with a handgun raised in the air with his right hand inside the bank and later carrying a bag that appears to be filled with money. He fled the scene in a late-model, dark-colored sedan, possibly a Dodge Charger, in an unknown direction, the FBI said.
Southwest Regional police Chief John Hartman said his department and the FBI were investigating the cases separately, but he admitted the robbery and bomb threats could be related.
“Do we know if all three incidents were interrelated? We have no specific information as of yet that they’re related,” Hartman said. “It would be incredulous that three incidents in such a small area in such a small time frame were not related somehow. That would seem to defy logic.”
California Superintendent Brian Jackson said the district received a phone call about a bomb threat at the high school at 9:18 a.m. He did not consider the threat to be “credible,” but district officials wanted to sweep the building with police K-9 officers to ensure the safety of the students and continue with evening activities.
Hartman said Bentworth’s bomb threat came in about 9:30 a.m. as that high school staged a mock prom night crash with many regional police, firefighters and ambulance workers about to put on the demonstration.
“The timing for us was very fortuitous,” Hartman said. “We had fire, EMS and police right there with the bomb scare. It helped our ability to handle it right away.”
The Bentworth high school and nearby middle school were immediately placed under lockdown and the high school students later were given an early dismissal, district Superintendent Charles Baker said.
The woman who placed the call was “very specific” in saying her son had brought a pressure cooker-style bomb in his backpack to school, Baker said. She didn’t stay on the phone long, and the district initially thought the threat was credible, he said.
He said the district quickly realized, though, that the threat was a possible diversion to the bank robbery after learning California had received a similar threat.
Hartman said his department sent some officers to the bank and also requested the Allegheny County Bomb Squad and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at the high school.
This is the third time since November 2011 this bank has been robbed.
Any information from the public regarding the bank robbery should be directed to the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office at 412-432-4000, Southwestern Regional police at 724-929-8484 or state police in Belle Vernon at 724-929-6262.