Prince William County police and the FBI are seeking the public’s assistance in finding a man who robbed a Wachovia bank on Christmas Eve.
The man walked into the Wachovia at 13891 Jefferson Davis Highway in Woodbridge shortly after 11 a.m. He approached a teller, demanded cash and left without displaying a weapon, police said.
The suspect, according to police, is a white man between 46 and 51 years old. He about 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 140 pounds. He was wearing a tan jacket with a hood and dark-colored pants.
Meanwhile, media reports indicate that there was a national surge in bank robberies in 2008.
Although the FBI has not released its official statistics, local FBI officials have said there hasn’t been a jump in the Washington area, which averages about three a week.
But other areas in the country have reported a jump, including New Mexico, where the number doubled in 2008, and San Francisco, which saw a jump from 20 to 32 in the first five months of 2008 over the same period in 2007, according to media reports.
Some crime experts point to the troubled economy as cause for the possible increase, but FBI officials say bank robberies tend not to jump significantly year over year. Instead, FBI officials say, robbers typically have diverging reasons for robbing banks.
Anyone with information about the Christmas Eve bank robbery should call Prince William police at 703-670-3700 or the FBI Washington Field Office at 202-278-2000.
For additional information on other bank robberies in the area, go online to bankbandits.org.
– Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
