Law officers in Rhea County apparently didn’t have a lot of trouble finding two men suspected of making a bomb threat in a bank robbery attempt Tuesday — all they had to do was track down the Mercury Mountaineer that appeared on video surveillance at the bank.
“Their plan wasn’t very thought out,” Dayton Police Chief Sneed said. “Anyone shouldn’t be surprised that, when you drive up to a bank, you’re on camera.”
Dayton police officers, along with the Rhea County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, arrested Allen Fitzgerald, 25, and Eric Hubbard, 39, Tuesday night in connection with the threat.
Both are charged with attempted bank robbery and other charges are pending, said Jeff Knight, with the Rhea County Sheriff’s Office.
Dayton police found a typed note posted on the First Bank of Tennessee’s front door Tuesday morning stating that six bombs, including some in schools, would blow up if “a large sum of money” was not placed outside the bank.
Authorities evacuated three schools and dismissed classes at all city and county schools.
Chief Sneed said that a deputy sheriff Tuesday night saw a match on the bank’s surveillance videotape to a sport utility vehicle he had pulled over earlier in the evening. They tracked down the 1997 Mercury Mountaineer and arrested two men.
“It was a really good joint effort from all law enforcement agencies,” Chief Sneed said. “We could do so much because we had so much manpower.”
On Tuesday morning, officers helped evacuate more than 2,000 students in the county, while deputies used bomb dogs to check every school for threats, he said.
“We know that there were no explosive devices anywhere,” Chief Sneed said.
Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Hubbard are from Dayton, but Mr. Knight said the sheriff’s office would not provide their addresses because of a number of threatening calls from people upset about the case.
The FBI is pursuing federal charges against both men, spokeswoman Stacie Bohannan said from the agency’s Knoxville office.