DATE: Wednesday, July 16, 1997              TAG: 9707160475

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY                    LENGTH:   36 lines

3 ESCAPE AFTER ROBBING BANK IN ELIZABETH CITY

Three men robbed First Union Bank on Ehringhaus Street at 4:55 p.m. Monday, just before closing time, police said.

The men entered the front and side doors of the bank and demanded that all bank employees and customers get on the floor before taking cash from teller stations, said Elizabeth City Police Capt. Bill Williams.

No one was injured.

Williams would not say how much money was taken.

The men were not wearing masks, but had ball caps and sunglasses. Police have fingerprints and photographs from surveillance cameras.

``We've got several witnesses and good leads,'' Williams said.

After the robbery, the men drove from the bank in a car stolen earlier from the parking lot at Pasquotank Elementary School about a mile away, Williams said.

The suspects drove the car across Ehringhaus Street and abandoned it in a parking lot near Southgate Mall.

They then ran to another car with a driver waiting for them on Cardwell Street, police said.

The second getaway car was described as a green, four-door GM.

The last bank robbery in Elizabeth City was in 1994 when a lone gunman robbed First Citizens Bank, just a few hundred yards from First Union.

The three suspects in Monday's robbery were described as:

A heavyset black male with a round face, about 6 feet tall, early 30s, wearing a white T-shirt.

A heavyset black male, about 6 feet tall, mid 30s.

A thin black male, mid 20s, wearing a green T-shirt. KEYWORDS: ROBBERY

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