THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605090373
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Senior citizens eating their breakfast biscuits at a Hardees were stunned Wednesday morning when a wounded bank robbery suspect burst into the restaurant followed by police.
Darryl Lamont Cook, arrested at the Portsmouth Boulevard restaurant, was one of two brothers charged in connection with an apparent robbery attempt at Jefferson National Bank on Airline Boulevard.
Police said they got a report about 9 a.m. that two men tried to enter the Midtown bank. Someone in the bank saw a gun and one of the men trying to pull ``some kind of cap'' over his face, police spokesperson Amber Whittaker said.
The men had opened the bank's front doors, but the second set of doors were locked, requiring customers to be buzzed in, Whittaker said.
They left in a Nissan ZX and an officer spotted them on Portsmouth Boulevard. After a short pursuit, Whittaker said, the Nissan hit a tree in a field behind a Long John Silver restaurant and the men jumped out. ``The passenger opened fire on the officer,'' Whittaker said, and the officer shot back, hitting the man in the leg.
Whittaker would not release the officer's name, but said he had fallen down in the mud during the chase and people were calling police to report that he had been shot.
The suspects ran in different directions, she said, and the officer went after the man who had shot at him.
They ended up at Hardees.
``I was sitting over here eating my breakfast, and this guy was on the floor moaning and groaning,'' Dorothy Garris said.
``I thought he was arguing with somebody.''
Garris said police told people to leave at first, but then told them they could stay.
Police arrested Cook, of the 900 block of County Street, and took him to Maryview Medical Center for the leg wound.
His brother, Eric R. Cook, 26, was arrested later in the laundry room of the nearby Hodges Manor Apartments. Eric Cook lives in the 4100 block of Shiela Crescent in Chesapeake.
Both men were charged with attempted capital murder of a police officer, attempted armed robbery and two counts of use of a firearm.
The police spokesman said someone tried to rob the same bank last week, but they have not linked the two men to that attempt. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BOB JONES
Police arrested Darryl Lamont Cook at the Portsmouth Boulevard
Hardees. He and his brother were charged in connection with an
apparent robbery attempt at Jefferson National Bank on Airline
Boulevard.
KEYWORDS: ROBBERIES BANK ARREST by CNB