A part-time White Hall police officer who owns a car business in Pine Bluff saw his two professions merge one day last year to help catch bank-robbery suspects.
Testifying in a federal trial that began Monday for a Pine Bluff man accused of orchestrating three bank robberies last year, Dane Reed, owner of Dane's Auto Sales, told jurors that he always takes his police radio to the car dealership in case the small Police Department needs assistance. But it wasn't until May 15, 2014, that he saw how perfectly his two jobs worked together.
Reed said he was sitting at his desk at the dealership when he heard a police dispatch seeking assistance from any nearby officers in pursuing a vehicle traveling south on Interstate 530 that was believed to have been involved in a bank robbery. The dispatcher said the car had taken the White Hall exit, which was nearby, so Reed jumped into a Chevrolet Suburban with blue police lights and joined in.
A contingent of marked and unmarked cars from the Little Rock Police Department, White Hall and the Jefferson County sheriff's office soon cornered the runaway gray Ford Taurus three or four blocks from the exit, and when Reed pulled up, he noticed that the Taurus bore a "Dane's Auto Sales" tag on the back.
The Little Rock officers had been looking for a gray Taurus after a caller alerted them that a bank robbery in Little Rock was planned for that day by the same people who had robbed another Little Rock bank the previous day, using the same vehicle. As it turned out, though, the second robbery took place in Benton, and the officers soon switched their attention to looking for a gray Taurus heading back toward Pine Bluff.
Reed said he recognized the Taurus when he pulled up after the other officers stopped it, and called his sales manager, Brandon Bia, who confirmed that he had sold the car just one day earlier. Reed said Bia was able to retrieve the paperwork, which provided the name of the buyer, and the two car dealers were able to later call up video footage from the car lot's security cameras, which showed that the buyer had been driven to the car lot in a black Honda -- the same black Honda that the police roadblock ended up unintentionally ensnaring along with the Taurus.
Reed testified that a woman was driving the black Honda when it was caught in the dragnet, but it was the Honda's passenger, Cameron Arnold of Pine Bluff, who ended up being charged, alongside the driver of the Taurus, Keyontae Johnson.
Johnson and Devonta Keshun Piggee, both also of Pine Bluff, ended up being charged in the bank-robbery conspiracy along with Arnold. Piggee, accused of helping Arnold rob the Iberia Bank branch at 4900 Markham St. on March 24, 2014, and Johnson, charged with helping Arnold rob the U.S. Bank branch at 5200 Kavanaugh Blvd. on May 13, 2014, as well as a Bank of the Ozarks branch on May 15, 2014, negotiated guilty pleas and agreed to testify against Arnold in exchange for reduced charges.
That leaves Arnold to face a jury alone on charges of bank-robbery conspiracy and three counts of bank robbery. His trial, in the Little Rock courtroom of U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes, is expected to end midweek.
Metro on 06/23/2015