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Oct 31, 2008 4:48 pm US/Central
2 Shot In Mesquite Bank Robbery; Gunman On The Run
MESQUITE (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Mesquite Police are searching for a gunman after a bank robbery and shooting Friday morning.
It happened at 9:30 at a Compass Bank branch in the 3100 block North Galloway. That's across the street from Poteet High School and about a half-mile east of Town East Mall.
A Mesquite Fire Department spokesman said an ambulance took two people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Ed Bilek, a spokesman at Compass Bank's headquarters in Birmingham, Ala., says the two people shot during the robbery were bank employees. As of 1 p.m., both were released.
Police believe the robber only fired one shot - that ricocheted. Police say one of the women was shot in the leg, and a bullet grazed the head of the other woman.
CBS 11 News spoke to Jim Wallace the brother of one of the women who was shot. "We're relieved that she's okay. That nothing major happened to her and that no arteries in the leg were hit or anything. It [the bullet] just went through the fleshy part of her leg," he said.
Officials said after the shooting, the suspect left the bank on foot and headed toward the Stoneleigh Apartments, just to the west of the bank.
The manager of the Stoneleigh Apartments told CBS 11 News several police officers searched the property.
Police describe the suspect as a black man of average build in his 30s. He was wearing a black shirt, black pants, a black baseball cap and had a backpack. He also had a bandage on his nose, police say, and was carrying a chrome handgun.
In a statement, Mesquite Police say the suspect got away with "an unknown amount of cash."
Greg Sowell, a spokesman for the City of Mesquite, says the Mesquite Police Department called the Texas Department of Public Safety and Garland Police to help with the search. The FBI is also involved, Sowell said.
The FBI typically investigates bank robberies.
Sowell also said a surveillance camera in the bank captured an image of the robber.
Mesquite ISD spokesman Ian Helprin says at the request of the police department, the district locked down 10 schools within a two-mile radius of the bank as a precautionary measure.
For nearly three hours students, teachers, and faculty at the schools listed below, were confined to their rooms.
Poteet High School
North Mesquite High School
Kimbrough Middle School
Wilkinson Middle School
Austin Elementary School
Beasley Elementary School
Cannady Elementary School
Porter Elementary School
Kimball Elementary School
Tisinger Elementary School
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