Video taken from Liz Kelleher’s car as a Rumson police officer stopped the two suspects.
Two suspects are said to be in custody, stopped at gunpoint by a Rumson cop as they attempted to leave a West River Road bank they’d threatened to blow up, according to an eyewitness.
Mayor John Ekdahl confirmed the two arrests, and said the suspects had attempted to rob the bank using the threat of blowing it up. It remained unclear, however, if they in fact had an explosive device or any weapons.
Rumson resident Liz Kelleher tells redbankgreen she saw the dramatic stop as she drove her teenaged daughter and her daughter’s friend east on West River Road at about 4:10p Tuesday.
Kelleher said that as she neared the bank, a westbound Rumson police car pulled into the eastbound lane, halting a vehicle as it pulled out from a side street alongside the bank.
The officer emerged with his gun drawn on the vehicle, Kelleher said. The driver stopped the car and two suspects, whom Kelleher said appeared to be Hispanic, emerged with their hands up, she said. They did not resist arrest or attempt to run, she said.
The officer held the two men at gunpoint until backup arrived, she said.
Sources tell redbankgreen the officer was Sergeant Jeff Nixon, but that is unconfirmed.
No identifications of the suspects were yet available. The FBI was planning to sweep the bank for any evidence of explosives, Ekdahl said.
“At this point, it’s under control,” Ekdahl said. “Who knows whether they had a bomb or not?”
Kelleher described a terrifying few seconds as she saw the police car stop the suspect’s vehicle.
“I was right there,” she said. “I didn’t want to be, but I was.”
