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Bank Robbed In Bridgeport

From Staff Reports

BRIDGEPORT – The Citizens Bank at 325 Howard St. in Bridgeport was robbed at gunpoint just after 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, sending law enforcement on a manhunt throughout the village.

The suspect was described as a male about 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall with a thin build. He was wearing a black, leather jacket, blue jeans, black shoes and a hooded sweat shirt pulled up over his head. He also may have been wearing a ski mask.

At the same time the bank robbery was reported, officials at Bridgeport High School were evacuating staff and students following a reported bomb threat. It was not clear whether the threat at the school was related to the bank robbery.

Law enforcement officers from the Bridgeport, Martins Ferry and Shadyside police departments, the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department and Ohio State Highway Patrol were on the scene of the robbery within minutes of the alarm being sounded by a bank employee.

At one point, officers stopped a man on Howard Street but had not made an arrest at press time.

Investigators were expected to review security tape at the bank.

The bank was locked down as police combed the area for the suspect, who was believed to have fled on foot. Before officers roped off the building, customers not knowing what had just happened were attempting to enter the bank only to find the front doors locked. Motorists attempting to use the drive-through also were turned away, apparently by a bank official. Passersby asked what was happening, some referencing that a bomb threat also had just been made at the school.

The same bank was robbed twice in 2011.

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