Bank robbery suspect in custody after crash

,.

The high-speed pursuit of a bank robbery suspect ended with a crash in The Village at 1:18 p.m. Wednesday injuring only the suspect but damaging several cars.

Police arrested the injured suspect at the scene. He was later identified as Drew Blanton, a 35 year-old white male.

If Mike Filson and his boss had been only 30 seconds slower getting out of Filson’s car at Sun and Ski Sports at 10109 N. May Avenue, the afternoon could have had been much worse for them.

Mike Filson car
Mike Filson’s Lexis took the heaviest damage in the parking lot of Sun and Ski Sports (Photo by Brett Dickerson, Oklahoma City Free Press)

The way it is, Filson and his boss are physically OK. But Filson has a badly wrecked Lexis GS 300 hit at high speed by the suspect’s Dodge Ram truck.

“My boss and I were coming up here to meet his son and get him a new wake board and we had just got out of the car and as we were walking in the door – boom,” Filson told Free Press.

He saw the truck hit his car.

“It [suspect’s truck] flew up in air, spun around and hit the back of that white truck that’s out there and then spun around and hit the two other cars,” said Filson. ‘We were just standing there in shock looking.”

OKCPD investigators told Filson that the good thing was the truck the suspect was driving had insurance.

However, it is not known if the suspect has the truck registered in his name.

Suspect and car
Suspect is wheeled across in front of the truck police think he was driving after a bank robbery (Photo by Brett Dickerson, Oklahoma City Free Press)

Suzanna Dixon was watching police vehicles gathering minutes after the crash.

“Yeah that car was driving really fast and was weaving in and out of traffic. It was crazy,” said Suzanna Dixon who saw the crash.

“Then he just turned up in that parking lot and hit those cars,” Dixon told Free Press. “I guess he was trying to get away from the police.”

Suspect – Chase

Blanton was arrested at the scene by Oklahoma City Police and then transported by EMSA to a hospital.

Blood could be seen on several parts of the suspects body and clothing while he waited in handcuffs for the ambulance to arrive.

bank robbery suspect after crash
Bank robbery suspect after crash in handcuffs and surrounded by police. (Photo by Brett Dickerson, Oklahoma City Free Press)

Officer Megan Morgan, spokesperson for OKCPD, said they got a call about a bank robbery at the Bank of America at 2101 W. Memorial Road.

Then they got a call from a citizen describing the truck and giving the tag number.

Air One, the OKCPD helicopter, flew to the 11100 block of Quail Creek Road where the tag was registered.

It was then that Air One observed a truck by the same description which fled southbound on N. May Avenue.

“The suspect will definitely be arrested for eluding officers,” said Morgan. “However as far as the bank robbery goes we don’t have definitive information on whether he is going to be booked in for robbery.”

Even though the crash ended in the Village, Russ Landon, the city’s deputy chief said they would allow OKCPD to work the scene.

OKCPD officers were seen at the time and later in the afternoon doing a crime scene investigation at the crash site.

The FBI has jurisdiction in all bank robbery cases and so is investigating the bank holdup.

The FBI did not make a spokesperson available to answer questions later in the afternoon when contacted by Free Press.

Author Profile

Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.