Bank in Redhawk Robbed with Fake Bomb

A man robbed a bank in Redhawk with a phony bomb, causing a road closure and evacuations today.

The man walked into the U.S. Bank at 31990 Temecula Parkway around 1:15 p.m., put a brown paper bag with something inside on the counter and told the teller it was a bomb.

He demanded money, which she handed over, and he ran out of the building and west across the parking lot, said sheriff’s Sgt. Will Edwards.

Bank management evacuated the building, and two minutes after the robbery, sheriff’s deputies arrived and started a search, but turned up nobody, according to the sergeant.

Westbound Temecula Parkway was closed down and an area around the bank – including the nearby Home Depot – was evacuated, the sergeant said.

The hazardous device team sent in a bomb-sniffing robot around 3:50 p.m. and discovered it was fake. The forensics team was then called to look for clues, he said. All lanes were reopened around 4 p.m.

Witnesses described the suspect as a thin Hispanic man about 5 feet, 11 inches tall, between 20 and 30 years old with black hair, a black mustache and wearing a black hat and sunglasses.

He managed to draw little attention to himself during the crime, witnesses said. “He held the door open for me,” said Kerrie Wells, who was in the bank at the time. “The next thing I know, he was running out the door.”

Deputies stretched tape all over the parking lot and stopped other customers from going inside.

“I was just about to the door when (a deputy) came out yelling for me to get away,” said Norton Shepperd, a Temecula resident. “I had no idea what was going on.”