Local and state police were "guilty" of excellent police work in how they captured a bank robbery suspect earlier this month near the Sky Bank branch office on Route 19 in Jackson Township.

Jackson police, alerted immediately about a robbery at the First National Bank office on Route 19 in Portersville, parked patrol cars on Route 19 and Little Creek Road to block off access to Interstate 79.

About 15 minutes later, an on-duty Zelienople police officer stopping at the Northgate Plaza spotted the car believed used in the Portersville crime and alerted other local police units. Jackson, Lancaster Township and Zelienople officers in unmarked cars set up a perimeter to seal off the plaza, and the state police were notified.

It was Lancaster officer Dave Sitler who spotted the suspect — later identified as Howard Albert Freshour, 54, of Upper Marlboro, Md., near Washington, D.C. — coming out of Northgate's BiLo supermarket. After Sitler's unmarked vehicle was noticed by Freshour, as the suspect was walking toward the Sky Bank branch office, Sitler, along with Jackson Chief Len Keller and a state trooper, moved in to apprehend the suspect.

Freshour was armed with a loaded .22-caliber revolver at the time he was apprehended, but the police officers' quick work kept him from drawing his weapon.

In addition to the Portersville robbery, Freshour is a suspect in a robbery the same day at a bank near Erie — and it is believed that he was on his way to rob the Sky Bank office at the time of his arrest. In addition, he was being investigated as a possible suspect in a bank robbery in Pine Township in Allegheny County.

At the time he was apprehended, Freshour commented only that he was "having a bad day." Fortunately, it was a very good day for the officers who demonstrated excellent police skills in "bankrupting" the suspect's ability to elude capture.

— J.R.K.