Baltimore County Police Beat / Bank Robbers Crashed and Crunched Their Way to Slammer
Baltimore County and Baltimore City Police Officers worked together to apprehend two bank robbers following a brief pursuit on Oct. 24, 2017.
Baltimore County Police report that officers saturated Belair Road in the Perry Hall and Overlea areas after receiving a call for a bank robbery that just occurred at SunTrust Bank, 8704 Belair Road, Belair, Md., around 11:50 a.m.
The first arriving officer broadcast a description of a male suspect who had entered the bank and displayed a note to the teller along with the suspect vehicle, both caught on bank surveillance video, leaving the scene on Belair Road toward Baltimore City.
Officers from the White Marsh Precinct positioned around Belair Road near Baltimore City, observed a vehicle matching the description of the suspect vehicle traveling southbound on Belair Road near Baltimore City. The officers initiated an investigative traffic stop on the vehicle, which immediately began to flee into Baltimore City. City Police were notified and quickly came to the assistance as the pursuit ended when the suspect crashed into a civilian’s vehicle, who suffered minor injuries, in the intersection of Federal Street and North Broadway.
Two suspects fled from the crash on foot. A female passenger was apprehended near the crash scene by Baltimore County and Baltimore City officers. She is identified as Crystal Lynn French, of 119 Rebel Road Apt. A, in Grasonville, Md.
The driver of the vehicle fled on foot into an alley and a resident’s yard, failing to comply with all of the officers’ verbal commands and resisting arrest once he was apprehended. He is identified as Matthew Dale Bush, 38, of both the above Grasonville address and also of 2644 Porter Road in Bear, Delaware.
Both suspects were briefly hospitalized with minor injuries. Both are charged with robbery and theft. Bush is additionally charged with resisting arrest. Both are held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center pending a preliminary hearing on Nov. 22, 2017.
Bush may have been doing his freestyle banking at SunTrust to pay off a load of traffic citations he has been racking up across Maryland in recent months or perhaps to pay his lawyer, Robert H. Harvey, of Prince Frederick, Md., for a looming trial in District Court in Calvert County following his arrest by Maryland State Trooper Matthews. Bush was charged on Feb. 24, 2017, with five counts of drug charges normally associated with heroin and has a trial set for Nov. 9, 2017.
