2 suspects held in hostage standoff at Illinois bank

A group of employees and victims of a hostage situation in Arcola, Ill., stand outside of the bank where the nine-hour ordeal occured. Police were able to resolve the situation without any of the five hostages being hurt, although a police officer was sho Steve Contorno

A group of employees and victims of a hostage situation in Arcola, Ill., stand outside of the bank where the nine-hour ordeal occured. Police were able to resolve the situation without any of the five hostages being hurt, although a police officer was sho Steve Contorno

By David Mercer

ARCOLA, Ill. – Two men wanted in an ambush shooting that critically wounded a sheriff’s deputy – one of whom later stormed inside a rural bank and took five hostages – were in police custody Friday awaiting charges.

None of the hostages taken Thursday at First Mid-Illinois Bank and Trust was harmed, authorities said. Each was released during a more than seven-hour standoff that followed a gunfire-filled chase through Illinois farm country that reached speeds of more than 100 mph.

It ended when the hostage-taker walked out of the bank alongside his only remaining captive and surrendered about 6:35 p.m., State Police Sgt. Bill Emery said. The suspect had been talking with an FBI negotiator.

“They both agreed he would come out and surrender,” Emery said. “We told him what door to go out and he went out the door and the hostage with him.”

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Emery had few details about the suspect Thursday night, but said he was not armed when he left the bank, though a handgun was found inside.

Four hostages had been released throughout the afternoon. The final hostage who emerged from the bank with the suspect was identified by family members as 27-year-old bank manager Brad Pullen – whose 69-year-old grandfather, Bill Pullen, was one of those released earlier in the day.

Bill Pullen told Chicago’s WLS-TV that the suspect in the bank “was only threatening” initially.

“His main thing was that nobody is gonna get hurt, which you have a tendency not to believe in that situation,” he said.

The situation began about 9:30 a.m. when a state trooper on Interstate 57, about 12 miles from Arcola, pulled over a silver Infiniti for having windows tinted too darkly. The trooper radioed for a drug-sniffing dog, which was alerted to something while sniffing around the car, and the suspects fled, Emery said.

Because there was no violent crime or threat of a violent crime, the trooper was not allowed under State Police policy to give chase, Emery said. An hour later, the two men robbed a home in nearby Camargo and stole a van.

Soon after, Douglas County sheriff’s deputy Tom Martin pulled the van over and was shot in the face and torso as he walked up to the vehicle, Emery said. Authorities said Martin, though critically wounded, called in the attack as the suspects fled, and the chase was on.

The van reached speeds of more than 100 mph, Emery said, and gunfire from the vehicle struck an Illinois State Police car in the windshield. The driver lost control of the vehicle as it careered over railroad tracks in Arcola, and the two men abandoned it.

One fled into the nearby bank about 11 a.m. The other suspect, a 23-year-old Chicago man, was taken into custody. It wasn’t immediately clear to authorities which suspect shot the deputy, Emery said.

The men were being held at Douglas County Jail.

Sheriff Charlie McGrew said Thursday evening that Martin, a 59-year-old father of two, had already had one of two expected surgeries and that it went “very well.” He was listed in critical condition Friday at the Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, said hospital spokeswoman Allison McLaughlin.

Arcola, a town of 2,600 about 150 miles south of Chicago, is home to an Old Order Amish settlement. The rural area features Amish homes, business and schools. It is also the hometown of Johnny Gruelle, creator of the Raggedy Ann and Andy characters in the early part of the last century.

“This does not happen in our little town,” said Paul Harshbarger, owner of Midwest Mobile Stages. Just a block from the bank, Harshbarger and his staff had tried to conduct business as usual as SWAT trucks and police with shotguns zoomed by.

Thursday night at the Dog House, a local bar and grill owned by Bill Pullen, relative Paul Romack sipped a beer as he expressed the family’s relief.

“Everything’s over and everything’s OK and everybody’s relaxed,” he said.