OLYMPIA, Wash. — Police have arrested a man they believe is responsible for 14 similar robberies at banks and restaurants in the Puget Sound area.
Police arrested 35-year-old Eric M. Collier of the Shelton, Washington, area in connection with the crimes. He's booked on eight counts of first-degree robbery.
In all but one of the robberies, the robber displayed a handgun, wore a mask and had a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head.
The string of incidents started as Olympia Police Department officers responded to two back-to-back robberies on Sept. 20 last year; the first occurred at Taco Bell and the second at Bank of America, both located on the West Side of Olympia.
On Nov. 4, during a robbery at a Thurston County Pizza Time, the robber fired his weapon during a struggle with an employee. The man continued to rob primarily Pizza Time businesses until late November.
A manager told KIRO 7 that Pizza Time restaurants considered installing panic buttons in their stores as a security measure after the robberies.
Beginning in early October, detectives and analysts from various agencies including the FBI began working together to develop possible leads.
On Jan. 10, detectives noted a suspicious car and were able to capture a license plate on a grey sedan that was slowly rolling through the parking lot. Officers lost sight of the vehicle in heavy West Side traffic, but about 30 minutes after that, Columbia Bank located in the Lacey area was robbed at gunpoint.
The license plate associated with the suspicious sedan was a switched plate. Detectives determined the canceled license plate was on a car traded in and resold at the Olympia Auto Mall.
On Tuesday, detectives followed the dark grey sedan to a residence in the Shelton, Washington, area. After a brief time, detectives followed the driver as he left and began driving around local banks.
Right before the Olympia Federal Bank closed, the driver parked away from the bank — where detectives were in place. The man had parked in the same area that a police K-9 tracked to during a Dec. 26 robbery at the same bank.
The man started walking toward the bank in similar items worn in previous robberies.
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