Bank robbery suspects nabbed within an hour

It took two bank robbery suspects a little more than two minutes to make off with about $17,000 in cash, and it took local law enforcement agencies 50 minutes to track them down and arrest them.

The suspects were arrested on Old Highway 93 just outside of Ronan last Friday, Aug. 12, the result of a massive manhunt that began within minutes of the 911 call that came in from the Community Bank in Pablo, a branch of Ronan State Bank, at 2:20 that afternoon.

Thomas Alfred Lozeau, 18, of Ronan and William James Gopher, 27, of Pablo were arrested and charged with robbery, and made an initial appearance via video in Justice of the Peace Chuck Wall's courtroom Monday afternoon, and both are being held on $100,000 bond.

Officers with the Ronan and Polson police departments, Montana Highway Patrol, Flathead Tribal police, Tribal game wardens, Lake County Sheriff's deputies and detectives and officials from the county's Office of Emergency Management began to comb roads throughout the county, looking for a teal-colored sedan that had been reported by bank employees as the getaway vehicle.

At 3:09 p.m., Tribal patrol officer Don Bell notified dispatch that he saw a teal-colored vehicle near the intersection of Old Highway 93 and U.S. 93 just outside of Pablo.

Bell told dispatch the occupants were acting very suspicious and continued to look at him as he pulled in behind them. Meanwhile, MHP officer Terry Rosenbaum and Tribal officer Sgt. David Morigeau responded to Bell's call, driving to his location to provide back-up.

"They were acting nervous and eyeballing me. They kept looking in the rearview mirror and it looked like they were shuffling things around in the vehicle," Bell said afterwards. "I began running video and following them around. I got to watch them a lot longer than normal."

At 3:11 p.m., about 50 minutes after the call came in, Bell initiated a traffic stop, with Rosenbaum and Morigeau providing back-up. Gopher and Lozeau were in the back seat, while two females were in the front seat, according to Rosenbaum.

Bell gave credit to all the officers involved, saying he was just in the right place at the right time.

Rosenbaum and Bell said they discovered wads of cash stuffed into the pants of both Gopher and Lozeau after both were handcuffed at the scene. According to court documents, a bank bag was found stuffed in the front of Gopher's pants with approximately $10,000 in it.

"They were shuffling around a lot in the car. We ordered them to put their hands up, but the two suspects in the back continued to shuffle around, like they were trying to hide stuff," said Rosenbaum, who had most recently worked as a highway patrolman in the Missoula and Seeley areas before starting work here on July 12.

The incident apparently began at 2:01 p.m. when officers responded to a 911 call, reporting a shooting outside of St. Ignatius. However, when officers responded they were unable to find a gunshot victim, and Lake County Sheriff Bill Barron said afterwards that they suspect it was a phony call designed to lure officers away from the Pablo area. That incident is still under investigation though.

Within minutes of the call from the bank, Sheriff's detective Dan Yonkin and deputy Lance Ewers arrived at the bank and began to secure the scene, view videotape and interview witnesses. Several bank employees who had apparently witnessed the robbery remained at the scene but did not appear visibly shaken, while the rest had been sent home.

Members of the Ronan Fire Department and other emergency personnel arrived on scene at approximately 2:40 p.m. because the robber had allegedly told tellers he had a bomb.

A small, nylon radio case left by the suspect was found at the scene, but did not contain a bomb. It was removed shortly before 3 p.m.

Meanwhile, Tribal police and game wardens, Sheriff's deputies, MHP officers, and Ronan and Polson police officers were on the lookout for a teal-colored sedan. The first break in the case came shortly before 3 p.m. when Ronan dispatch received a phone call reporting that someone had jumped out of a vehicle on Montana Ave. in Pablo and raced across a field to another house across the railroad tracks, according to call records provided by the Lake County Sheriff's office.

Officers had located a teal-colored vehicle on Montana Ave. less than a mile from the bank about a half hour after the robbery, and Tribal officers and Sheriff's deputies secured the scene. The vehicle had been stolen, and Sheriff's deputy Shane McCuin, who was at the bank, drove two bank employees to the vehicle to confirm that it was the getaway car.

According to court documents filed Monday, it is believed that the two suspects ditched the vehicle and ran to the home of a woman they knew in Pablo. There they allegedly told her and her friend that they had just robbed a bank and needed to get out of the area, and the woman took her mother's vehicle, and all four piled in.

As fate would have it, the vehicle was a teal-colored sedan, although a different make and model than the getaway car. Bell noticed a teal-colored vehicle shortly after 3 p.m.

The two women were also arrested with Gopher and Lozeau but were later released after Sheriff's detectives determined that they had no part in the robbery.

"They knew one of them (the women) really well, but it wasn't pre-planned," Sheriff's detective Jay Doyle said of the visit to the woman's house in Pablo.

At 3:36 p.m., Sheriff Bill Barron radioed county detention officers to notify them that they were transporting four prisoners.

"We have the bank robbery suspects," he said. "We need to make room for them."

"The one thing that helps us out is that we have a lot of different agencies throughout the county, each with their own specialties. When we work together, each agency brings their resources to the table. By doing so, we are able to solve a lot more crimes," Tribal police chief Craig Couture said after the arrests. "We had guys on the north and south end of the county and everyone spread out and took the roads nearest to them, and it all came together in the middle."

According to court documents, the suspect entered the bank and approached tellers, telling them he had a bomb and would detonate it if they didn't give him some money. The tellers then placed approximately $17,000 U.S. dollars and $1,600 Canadian dollars into a green bank bag and gave it to the suspect. The tellers later described the suspect as wearing a black, long-sleeved T-shirt and wearing a "Native pride" hat.

At the scene of the arrest, Lozeau was found to be wearing a "Native pride" hat, according to court documents. Lozeau later told detectives he was driving the vehicle and that Gopher claimed he was he just going in to cash a check, but that he returned with a bank bag and said he had robbed the bank, according to court documents.

Lozeau told detectives that Gopher gave him part of the money once they reached the Pablo residence at approximately 2:40 p.m. Gopher was too intoxicated to be interviewed Friday evening, according to court documents.

Shortly after 4 p.m., Sheriff's deputy Becky McClintock arrived at the scene of the getaway vehicle with her dog, Yukon, who is trained to search for lost hikers, articles of clothing, and other scent-detection work. McClintock and Yukon worked the area that afternoon in search of the black shirt and other items of clothing tellers had described the suspect as wearing, and found a black shirt along the route the vehicle had been driven away from the bank, Doyle said.

In their initial court appearance Monday afternoon, Gopher requested a public defender and asked that his bond be reduced to a $10,000 surety bond, which would allow him to go free by posting just 10 percent to a bail bondsman.

Gopher said he hoped to post bond so he could "be with my family and …. get prepared for the case. I am not a flight risk."

Gopher told Justice of the Peace Chuck Wall that he was an enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree tribe on the Rocky Boy Reservation. Deputy county attorney Mitch Young argued that bond should remain at $100,000 because Gopher allegedly provided a false name to arresting officers, and because Young wasn't sure if there was an extradition agreement between the county and the Rocky Boy reservation.

"The fact that he is from a foreign reservation, that, as far as I know, doesn't have an extradition agreement" is reason enough to keep the bond at $100,000, Young said.

Gopher said he was employed at a local manufacturing firm, and that he had gotten in a fight with his common-law wife. He asked to be released to be with her, but Young said statements Gopher had made to detectives earlier indicated she probably wasn't going to take him back.

Lozeau told Wall he plans to hire an attorney to defend him rather than have a public defender assigned to him. Lozeau said he was an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and that he was living in his vehicle, a 1998 Nissan Maxima. He listed his father's address in Ronan as a mailing address.

Young cited the fact that he had no fixed address as reason to keep the bond at $100,000, and Lozeau did not contest the amount.

Both men face fines of up to $50,000 and 40 years in prison, and will likely be arraigned later this week or next week after they've had access to attorneys.