Colonial Heights looks for suspect on a bicycle who tried and failed to rob a bank

COLONIAL HEIGHTS – Police are looking for a man they say tried to rob a bank in the city Monday morning and fled the scene on a bicycle, and as it turns out, that person could be responsible for an attempted hold-up earlier in the day at a bank in downtown Petersburg.

The incident happened around 11:15 a.m. at Touchstone Bank on the Boulevard at Colonial Square shopping center, police Sgt. Desiree McCurry said in an email. The suspect, who was dressed all in black with a black face mask, gave a letter to a teller claiming that he had a gun.

No weapon was ever seen.

McCurry said bank employees activated an alarm, and the would-be bandit fled the scene.

“Further investigation revealed that the suspect may be traveling on a bicycle and possibly has paint and dirt on his clothing,” McCurry said in the email.

Surveillance photos released by police show the suspect walking into the bank and later pushing the bicycle away from the entrance as he was leaving. McCurry said he was last seen heading toward Publix Supermarket in the shopping center.

No one was injured in the robbery attempt.

The incident in Colonial Heights happened about 45 minutes after someone tried to rob a Truist Bank branch at the corner of East Washington and North Adams streets in downtown Petersburg. Petersburg Police's description of the suspect is similar to that of the Colonial Heights robbery − all-black clothing, black hat and black face mask − leading to the possibility the two may be related.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Colonial Heights Police say man on a bike tries to rob a bank