WASHINGTON — A would-be robber was shot multiple times in a shootout with security guards outside a Loudoun County bank Thursday.
Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman called the attempted robbery of an armored truck in the middle of a busy shopping center brazen.
The injured robber and a second person tried to rob the truck as the guards were preparing to take money inside the Capital One Bank branch at the Eastern Marketplace Plaza in South Riding about 1:30 p.m., Chapman says.
One of the robbers shot at the guards, who then both returned fire, hitting one of the robbers multiple times.
The pair of would-be robbers ran across a field to a waiting car and fled toward Fairfax County, where police stopped them soon after in the area of Fairfax County Parkway and Rugby Road, Chapman says.
The passenger of that getaway car was suffering from with multiple gunshot wounds and is in critical condition at a Fairfax hospital. The driver of the car is in custody and was being questioned by investigators and the FBI, Chapman says.
The Loudoun County police on Thursday night identified the driver, and uninjured suspect, as Jarrod Williams, 27, of Oxon Hill, Maryland. He has been charged with attempted robbery and the use of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The second suspect is at Inova Fairfax Hospital; charges are pending.
Chapman credited a witness who spotted the pair inside a grocery store before the shooting and thought something was off. That witness saw the would-be robbers run to the waiting car and called 911 with a description, Chapman says.
No one else was hurt.
“It’s probably the most brazen thing that I’ve seen since I’ve been on the job here, with a daytime shooting, exchange of gunfire in the middle of a busy shopping center in the middle of the day,” Chapman says.
WTOP’s Neal Augenstein contributed to this report from South Riding.
