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Funeral home, bank robbed
North county schools locked down Monday
Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009
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Two armed and hooded men robbed two north county businesses around noon Monday, making off with an undisclosed amount of cash, a Calvert County Sheriff's Office press release stated.
The pair first entered the Lee Funeral Home in Owings where an employee was pistol whipped and a second pushed into the chapel.
"He hit me on the head with the butt of a gun," said Tim Sayre, a part-time employee. The two men "were pretty well wrapped up" wearing hoods over their heads and ski masks or scarves around their faces, he said.
Sun Trust Bank in Dunkirk was also robbed by the same men and at least one shot was fired while the suspects fled the bank, but no one was injured by the gunshot, police said.
An employee at the bank also suffered a head injury, but it was fortunate that no one was critically injured, said Lt. Steve Jones, Commander of the Calvert Investigative Team.
"We're working on some video now," he said of the investigation Tuesday morning.
After the incident, schools in the north end of Calvert County were locked down.
An e-mail sent to parents from the Calvert County public school system's Web master said that after school personnel consulted with law enforcement, Mt. Harmony Elementary School in Owings, Northern Middle School in Owings, Northern High School in Owings and Sunderland Elementary School were all placed on full lockdown.
Sgt. Larry Titus of the Maryland State Police is the police liason officer with Calvert County public schools and said that the schools were initially put on full lockdown because law enforcement received conflicting information and were not aware of the direction in which the robbery suspects were headed.
A little over an hour after the initial e-mail was sent, the Calvert County public school system's Web master sent out another e-mail stating that, based on conversations with law enforcement officials, the four schools were changed to partial lockdown, during which students and parents had controlled access to the school.
The school day for students, Titus said, "should not have been disrupted at all," as most students were at lunch and therefore contained when the full lockdown was enforced.
According to another e-mail sent from the Calvert County public school system's Web master on Monday evening, all schools resumed normal functions on Tuesday.
The two suspects fled in a silver passenger vehicle of unknown make or model toward Ferry Landing Woods. They have not been located and it is believed they are not in the immediate area, the press release stated.
Sayre, who was with a client at the time of the robbery, said he heard some screaming, and at first thought it might be distraught family members of his client, but when he went to investigate he saw the two men push funeral director Lisa Mounts into the chapel.
After, "they started pointing their guns at me," said Sayre, who said he was trying to think logically rather than become emotional.
While newscasts on Monday night stated that the suspects mistook the funeral home for PNC Bank, which sits next door, Sayre has a different theory.
"Maybe they did it as a diversion," he said, adding that the Sun Trust Bank was robbed immediately afterwards.
Sun Trust Bank did not return a phone call.
Jones is handling the investigation.
