Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video) 
 
 Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video) 
 
 By Gina Mace 
 
 Special to the Beacon Journal 
 
 Police believe they have their man. 
 
 But they fear their suspect in a bank robbery may have eaten some of the evidence — the note handed to a Streetsboro bank teller demanding cash — while he was handcuffed and leaning over the hood of a police cruiser. 
 
 Twinsburg police Patrolman Daniel Biada said a dash cam video of Thursday's arrest of John H. Ford, 35, of Cleveland, shows Ford gobbling a piece of paper while officers searched his pockets. 
 
 ''As we're searching him, officers are removing items and throwing them on the cruiser [hood],'' Biada said. ''We're searching him for weapons. We're not looking at his head.'' 
 
 The whereabouts of the note demanding money came into question after Biada was taken into custody and Streetsboro investigators asked whether officers had found the piece of paper. 
 
 Twinsburg police reviewed the images captured on camera and said they observed Ford leaning over to eat something off the hood of the cruiser. 
 
 ''He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,'' Biada said. ''He just ate it right there.'' 
 
 Authorities said they found a .38-caliber pistol on the driver's side floor of Ford's car and a wad of cash covered in red ink on the passenger side of the vehicle. 
 
 Ford is also a suspect in bank robberies in Stow and Akron. 
 
 In the Streetsboro case, a man walked into the FirstMerit branch on state Route 14 around 10 a.m. and handed a teller a note that demanded money. The robber did not produce a gun inside of the bank. 
 
 Witnesses say he fled in a dark Ford Escort. 
 
 Twinsburg police stopped Ford, who was driving a black Ford Escort, on Interstate 480 shortly after the robbery was reported and turned him over to Streetsboro police. ||||| A "brazen" trio has robbed nearly two dozen Los Angeles area banks in the span of seven months and police, worried that the bandits' attempts may become violent, appealed last week to the public for help in catching them. 
 
 The suspects are still on the loose, Det. Joe Harris with the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division told NBC News Friday, a week after the department released security footage of the three men and asked the public to call in any information that might lead to their arrests. 
 
 The LAPD decided to release the videos because police have "had it" with the volume of heists connected with the group — 23 since November, Harris said. 
 
 "They're hitting all over the place," he said. 
 
 Typically, the thieves casually walk into their target bank and one hands a teller a note, according to the LAPD. "They demand money and claim to be armed while threatening violence if their demands are not met," said a statement from the department. 
 
 No one has been physically hurt to date by the robbers, who have been dubbed the "Cold Hand Bandits" because one of the suspects wore winter gloves during one of the first robberies, said Laura Eimiller with the Los Angeles FBI office. But authorities worry that the violent threats on the notes might become reality if the robbers don't get what they want. 
 
 LAPD's robbery homicide division seeks the public's help in identifying bank robbery suspect. LAPD 
 
 The FBI is working with the LAPD, along with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Alhambra Police Department, Pasadena Police Department and Long Beach Police Department to identify and catch the three suspects, who are considered "armed and dangerous," according to the LAPD. 
 
 "It is scary," said the manager of a bank that the "Cold Hand Bandits" have robbed twice. 
 
 The manager, who didn't want to be identified for security reasons, told NBC News she will be on edge until the robbers are caught, but the chance of robberies is always a fear. "Working with cash, that’s the worry that we have every day," she said. 
 
 The most recent robbery took place in late April and was a repeat performance at a bank in the city of Artesia that the suspects had robbed ten days earlier, according to security footage released by the LAPD that showed portions of five different robberies. 
 
 Footage from April 18 shows a single robber handing a teller a note and then exiting with a wad of cash she hands him. 
 
 In footage from April 28, one of the suspects wanders the lobby of the bank, brandishing what appears to be a gun, while another suspect jumps over the counter. At least two tellers drop to the floor as the robber behind the counter opens drawers, using his shirt in an apparent bid to avoid leaving behind fingerprints. 
 
 One teller gets up to open a drawer that requires a key, and the robber fills a bag with what appears to be cash before he and the man with the gun run out of the bank. 
 
 "This isn’t amateur hour," Det. Charles Geiger of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division told NBC Los Angeles. "The next level is people get tied up, maybe somebody gets hurt.” ||||| Video (00:44) : An Iowa TV reporter was on live TV outside a Minnesota bank when a bank employee pointed out a suspect who had allegedly just robbed it. A suspect was arrested later. 
 
 A man accused of robbing the same Rochester bank on successive days was caught in the southern Twin Cities on Tuesday, soon after a news reporter on live television spotted the suspect and excused himself to call police, authorities said. 
 
 The initial robbery of Sterling Bank on Hwy. 52 near NW. 55th Street occurred late Monday morning, police said. Wearing a sweatshirt from a Minneapolis road race with the words “get lucky” on the front, the robber told the teller he had a gun, was given an undisclosed amount of cash and fled, police said. 
 
 The same man came back for more around noon Tuesday, went through the same routine and fled in a stolen van on northbound Hwy. 52, authorities said. The van was stopped near Coates in Dakota County, and a man was arrested. 
 
 The 36-year-old suspect has been living at a halfway house in Rochester after his release from federal prison for robbing a bank in Minneapolis in 2009, said Rochester Police Capt. John Sherwin. 
 
 The aftermath of the second holdup was caught on live TV by a reporter from Mason City, Iowa, who was in front of the bank reporting on the previous day’s crime. 
 
 Adam Sallet of KIMT-TV had just begun his report when a bank employee came running out, pointing. 
 
 A man accused of robbing the same Rochester bank on successive days was caught in the southern Twin Cities on Tuesday soon after a news reporter on live television -- directed by a bank employee, as shown -- spotted the perpetrator and excused himself to call police, authorities said. 
 
 “That’s the robber,” the employee said. “That’s him right there.” 
 
 Sallet didn’t miss a beat. 
 
 “Oh, that’s the robber,” Sallet said, pointing his note pad in the direction of the fleeing perpetrator. “This is live TV, folks. That’s the robber — just went by, according to the bank employee. I have to go here and call 911. I’ll talk to you later.” 
 
 And with that, Sallet dashed off-camera. 
 
 News anchor Tyler Mickelson picked it up from there, saying, “I can assure you that was not set up.” 
 
 Police knew whom they were looking for because the suspect stopped for gas in the stolen van and used a fuel card, Sherwin said. A peek at the gas station video gave investigators a good look at the suspect, the captain said. 
 
 And as luck would have it, a Rochester officer leaving the Twin Cities after a training assignment was heading south on the highway near Cannon Falls, spotted the van — it had “hot tub” written on the side — and “flipped around and got behind it,” Sherwin said. 
 
 It would not be long before officers from several agencies caught up to the suspect in Dakota County. 
 
 Noting the message on the robber’s hoodie from the previous day’s stickup, Sherwin said, “I guess his luck ran out today.”
– It was almost a good idea. Above the Law takes note of a video making the rounds of a bank robbery suspect in Ohio. When an officer finds the alleged note to the teller and dumps it on the hood of the cruiser, the man eats it without the cops noticing. Too bad for him, a dashboard cam captured it all. ''He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,'' an officer tells the Akron Beacon Journal. ''He just ate it right there.'' Lucky for police, they also found a pistol and ink-stained cash in the suspect's car.