Police: Man arrested for holding woman hostage at Bank of America
MIAMI Miami police took a suspect into custody on Friday following an incident at the Bank of America financial center.
Sky 10 captured video of Miami police placing a handcuffed man in the back seat of a patrol car around 12:50 p.m. Friday.
A chaotic scene played out in a bank on the 100th block of West Flagler Street, where there were various reports of what was going on inside.
According to the police, several calls were received about the attack on the bank, then around 12:30 a robbery became possible.
When they arrived, the man was holding an elderly woman by the neck with a bag in hand, police said.
Officers at the scene were able to talk to the man until he was taken into custody, with no one seriously injured.
“One of our officers goes inside and sees that there is a black man, whom a woman is holding by the neck, and that he has a bag with him. We didn’t see a weapon, but his hand was inside the bag, which to us cops tells us there could be a weapon inside,” Miami Police Officer Michael Vega said.
Police said the investigation was ongoing and that they believed the man being held hostage was a bank customer and not a bank teller as originally reported.
“Probably the bank customer was held hostage, not the bank teller,” Vega said.
It is still not clear if the man robbed a bank or tried to rob an elderly woman.
Part of West Flagler Street was closed between 1st and 2nd Avenues.
No one was seriously injured, however, the Miami City Sergeant was taken to the hospital for treatment after he injured his knee while climbing stairs while arriving at the scene.
The police were the first to react, but now the FBI will take over the investigation. The reason the FBI investigates banks goes back to 1934, when, according to the FBI, it became a federal crime to rob any national or state bank that is part of the Federal Reserve.
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