Community Post

Charges Filed in Bank Robberies from Last Week

Yesterday King County Prosecutors filed charges of First Degree Robbery against Ricardo Perez for the robberies of the Wells Fargo at 15th & John on Capitol Hill and the Banner Bank on First Hill.

In the first incident, court documents allege that Perez walked into the Wells Fargo inside Safeway on April 24th and gave the teller a hand-written note that said “I have a gun. Put all the 100’s, 50’s, 20’s, 10’s, 5’s, and 1’s on the counter.” The teller handed over the cash and the suspect fled the scene. 

The security camera footage from that first case was distributed to the media, and an employee of Banner Bank contacted police to say that she recognized the suspect as Perez, a former customer of the bank. Detectives then got a positive ID of Perez by comparing the video footage to a booking photo of Perez when he was previously arrested on forgery charges in January of this year. 

Next, the Banner Bank of First Hill was robbed on April 29th by a man with a similar description to the suspect in the previous Capitol Hill robbery. The teller in that case was shown a photo montage by detectives and Perez was again positively identified as the suspect.

Detectives learned from Perez’s family that he might be staying with his sister in an apartment in the 2100 block of S. Main. Police were sitting outside that location when they saw the suspect exit the residence and walk across the SVI parking lot where he was arrested. A search of that residence turned up clothing that matched that used in the both of the previous robberies. However, no cash was recovered in the search. At the time of his arrest, Perez stated to police that he had already spent it on drugs. 

Perez has previous convictions stretching back as far as 1979 for burglary, robbery, theft, vehicle theft, assault, and DUI. He is scheduled to be arraigned on May 18th.

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