Tampabay: Robberies spark 2-county chase

Two St. Petersburg men robbed two bank customers in Largo and Tarpon Springs Tuesday morning, spraying one of them with pepper spray, then led law enforcement on a chase through two counties, according to police and sheriff's deputies.

At one point, a Pinellas sheriff's deputy shot at the fleeing car when the driver headed directly at him, sheriff's officials said. The two men ditched the car on the Veterans Expressway in Hillsborough County and were caught as they tried to run away.

Tarpon Springs police charged 27-year-old Theron Speights and 24-year-old Edwin S. Hobbs with armed robbery, burglary and felony fleeing to elude. In addition, Hillsborough sheriff's deputies planned to charge Speights, the driver, with aggravated fleeing and eluding and leaving the scene of a crash.

The spree began at 9:50 a.m. in the parking lot of the Bank of America at 6599 Ulmerton Road in Largo. Christine Meserole, 51, the manager of My Gift Cottage on U.S. 19 in Clearwater, was in front of the ATM machine en route to delivering the store's cash receipts to the bank when a man ran up from behind her and snatched the money bag.

"He came in low and ducked down behind me," Meserole said.

She never saw or sensed him until he grabbed the bag and ran in the other direction, she said. She only saw the back of him as he jumped into the passenger side of a slowly moving car about 25 feet away.

More angry than scared, Meserole considered hopping in her car and driving after them. But then she thought better of it, went into the bank and reported that she had been robbed.

"I'm still angry," she said Tuesday afternoon. "I'd like to get ahold of them and choke them."

The man didn't touch her or in any way hurt her, she said, but she was surprised at the nerve of someone pulling such a stunt.

The last she saw, the two-tone cream-colored car with dark tinted windows was headed north.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office put out a bulletin for law enforcement officials to look out for such a car.

At 11:50, Kathleen T. Auger, 39, the assistant manager at a Mobil gas station in Tarpon Springs drove to the nearby Bank of America on Tarpon Avenue at U.S. 19 to deposit the station's cash receipts.

A cream-colored car apparently followed her from the Mobil to the bank, said Tarpon Springs police Sgt. Jeffrey P. Young. While in the bank parking lot, one of the men opened Auger's door and shot pepper spray in her face. He then hopped in the car, reached over her and grabbed the money bag. The man then hopped into the getaway car, which quickly sped away.

Nearby on U.S. 19, Tarpon Springs Police Officer Chris Cornelius, 20, less than a month on the force, had made a traffic stop. He was in the car with training officer Rob Gellatly when a citizen drove up, pointed to a car heading south on U.S. 19 and reported that a man in that car had just taken something from a woman in the bank parking lot.

Cornelius pursued the car, but backed off when the driver started driving erratically, Young said.

But when the two officers got word about the robbery, they picked up the chase.

Young said he did not know how fast the cars were going, but the chase took them off the commercial highway east onto Alderman Road, then south on Lake St. George Drive to Tampa Road, where the fleeing car headed toward Oldsmar.

Ahead, Pinellas County sheriff's Deputy Russell Klar started to set up some "stop sticks" designed to puncture the tires of the fleeing car at the intersection of Tampa and Race Track roads.

However, the car went around some other vehicles in the eastbound lane and headed straight at Klar, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Cal Dennie. Klar, who has been with the Sheriff's Office since 1999, fired one shot from his 9-mm handgun, hitting the car's passenger side window, but not anyone inside, Dennie said.

The chase continued north on Race Track Road.

With Hillsborough County deputies now joining Tarpon Springs police in the chase, the car headed east on Linebaugh Avenue. The car rear-ended another car at the intersection of Linebaugh and Wilsky Boulevard, but the damage was minor and no one was injured.

Again, the chase continued, ending up on the Veterans Expressway.

Apparently, the suspects' car began to break down, Hillsborough deputies said, and the two ditched the older model Ford in the median about a mile south of Waters Avenue. They then tried to run away. Both headed for a large fence several hundred yards east of the median, but Tarpon Springs police and Hillsborough deputies caught Hobbs before he made it to the fence. A Hillsborough deputy caught Speights after he hopped that fence and a second smaller one.

Dennie said the car and method of crime fit the description of another deposit bag robbery in Dunedin on the afternoon of March 8.

That robbery took place in front of Granada Cleaners at 1503 Main St., Dunedin, as the manager of the cleaners was walking to her car with a deposit bag. A man, apparently working alone, came up behind her, grabbed the bag and fled in a cream-colored car with tinted windows, Dennie said.

Last August, Speights was charged with armed robbery, trafficking in cocaine and several other charges by the Tampa Police Department and Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, according to jail records. The status of those cases was unavailable Tuesday evening. Speights also faces charges of selling cocaine in Pinellas County and has pleaded not guilty. Records in both counties indicate he was released from jail after posting bail.

Early Tuesday evening, Speights was still in the process of being booked at the Hillsborough County jail. Hobbs was being held without bail.

-- Times staff writer Deborah O'Neil contributed to this report.

Back to Tampa Bay area news
Back

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

Headlines
From the Times
local news desks