Editor’s Note: Street Survival Seminar instructor Betsy Brantner Smith encourages officers to always be prepared off duty as well as on duty. An unofficial poll conducted during a Street Survival Seminar revealed that about one third to one half of the officers attending carry an off duty firearm (this varies regionally).
Learn more about off duty carry by reading the following training articles:
Training to carry off duty
Off duty survival: Are you ready to fight?
10 tips for officers engaged in off duty incidents
By Michael A. Fuoco
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — An armed masked man was thwarted in his attempt to rob a Shadyside bank late yesterday morning by a uniformed off-duty police officer who chased the man and exchanged gunfire with him before the suspect drove off, apparently wounded.
City police last night said they weren’t sure if any of the officer’s two to three shots hit the suspect or if the man was struck by his own gunfire. He left a blood trail of 15 to 20 feet leading to where the getaway car was parked in Myrtle Way, adjacent to the National City Bank at Walnut and Ivy streets. The officer, a Pittsburgh policeman who was working for the bank on a security detail, was uninjured.
“There’s quite a bit of blood,” Pittsburgh police Chief Nate Harper said. “We don’t know the severity but we believe the suspect is injured.”
Police notified hospitals in the region to be on the lookout for a man with a gunshot wound.
The Ellis School on Fifth Avenue went into lockdown for a time and canceled some after-school activities. Winchester Thurston School on Morewood Avenue was not on official lockdown but took precautions like locking outside doors and having its security guard patrol the perimeter.
The robber was described as a stocky, 5-foot-10 black man who was wearing a brown hooded sweatshirt under a dark green sweater and dark trousers. He was carrying a red and black duffel bag over his left shoulder when he walked into the bank. He fled in a silver car, possibly a Toyota sedan, Chief Harper said.
According to Chief Harper, the following occurred:
Hooded and masked, the suspect entered the bank about 11:30 a.m. The man, whose hand was in his pocket and shaking, spotted the uniformed officer before he made it to the teller window. Seeing the masked man, the officer reached for his service handgun.
“Don’t even think about it,” yelled the suspect, who turned and ran with the officer in pursuit. Outside, they turned left on Walnut and ran the length of the bank building to Myrtle Way and turned left again.
The suspect ran and fired three shots back toward Walnut, at the officer. The officer returned fire down Myrtle, firing two to three shots, Chief Harper said.
“It was dangerous, especially at that time of day,” he said of the suspect’s actions. “It was quite a brazen act for an individual to walk in where a uniformed officer was present and to then fire three shots at the officer.
“There’s no telling where those bullets could have hit. They could have hit an innocent bystander. We’re just fortunate that no one innocent was injured.”
Ravi Reddy, owner of Jitters Cafe and Ice Cream across Ivy from the bank, said he and a colleague were in the store’s second-floor offices when the robbery occurred.
“Where [the co-worker] was sitting, he had a clear view and saw the robber run out of the bank with the officer behind him,” Mr. Reddy said. “He said the robber was wearing a hood and had a silver weapon in his hand and the cop was following him.
“I ran to the window and we heard four or five gunshots but couldn’t see into the alley. We waited a few minutes and then went to the bank and in the alley we could see a blood trail on a grassy area where snow fell.”
Mr. Reddy said he had been in business there for about 15 years and while there had been robberies before at the bank “there has never been gunfire exchanged. It’s crazy.
“People have been ... saying the same thing, that something like this isn’t expected in Shadyside.”
He said his colleague, who did not wish to be interviewed, was shaken by the incident.
“He said, ‘What if one of those gunshots had come up and hit us?’”
Copyright 2009 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette