The man charged with robbing a Frederick bank on Friday was found hiding under a pool deck attached to Melanie Bittner’s house in the Robin Meadows subdivision.
“He must have jumped the fence,” Bittner, 49, said Friday afternoon.
Andrew Thomas Schultz, 25, of the 6700 block of Killdeer Court, was arrested in connection with a robbery at SunTrust Bank at 2 N. Market St. at about 12:30 p.m., according to the Frederick Police Department.
Authorities found Schultz about two hours later in a subdivision off New Design Road.
Bittner remembers hearing a helicopter nearby, but had no idea Schultz had wiggled his way under her pool deck.
“I just kept working,” she said.
But a phone call from a next-door neighbor made Bittner to take a look outside.
“I came down and looked out front and there were cars everywhere,” she said. Bittner watched as authorities looked under her deck.
“That’s when I knew someone was under my deck,” she said.
Police dogs — one of which bit Schultz — directed officers to Bittner’s backyard, where he was arrested.
Next-door neighbor Kelly Miletich said she saw Schultz being searched next to her mailbox.
Miletich called Bittner and told her house was surrounded by police cars. As more officers pulled into the residential street, sirens and lights were not used.
“I was very impressed with how they handled everything,” Miletich said of the police.
Miletich said she received a phone call from her daughter, a Tuscarora High School freshman, as police pulled into the subdivision.
Her daughter was calling from a school bus that pulled into a nearby supermarket parking lot after Frederick County Public Schools was notified about “police activity.”
While school buses were being held, Ballenger Creek Elementary School was placed on precautionary lockdown for less than 10 minutes.
The school resumed normal operations to dismiss on time, according to school officials.
No other schools were involved in a precautionary lockdown.
Buses taking students home from Tuscarora High were held at the entrance to the community until the disturbance was contained.
Staff writer Brian Englar contributed to this report.
