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Suspect still in good condition
By Charles Richards
The Paris News
Published April 11, 2006
A suspect in Thursday’s robbery of a branch of Peoples National Bank remains hospitalized in good condition at Paris Regional Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for wounds from a shotgun blast to the legs during a manhunt in the Sulphur River bottoms of southern Lamar County.
Justice of the Peace Cindy Ruthart arraigned Michael Allen Hammonds, 32, and Robyn Ann Bradford, 25, Friday, setting bond at $300,000 apiece on robbery charges.
The 5-foot-11, 160-pound Hammonds’ address was shown on driver’s license records as a rural residence outside Buffalo, Texas, off Interstate 45 about halfway between Dallas and Houston. But he and the 5-foot-3, 195-pound Bradford had been living in Paris in an apartment in the 2100 block of Bonham Street, Lamar County Sheriff’s Department records show.
Hammonds was still at the hospital under armed guard Monday. The Paris Police Department has been providing the guard since an ambulance took him there about 11 p.m. Thursday. By prior arrangement, the detail was to be handed off about 5 p.m. today to the sheriff's department, Assistant Police Chief Bob Hundley said.
Since bank robbery is a federal crime, a federal grand jury probably will consider indicting him and moving him to a hospital under federal control, Hundley said.
Police Chief Karl Louis said most if not all of the estimated $15,000 taken in the robbery was recovered. Hammonds was carrying a sack full of money and the pockets of his baggy pants were bulged out front and back with cash when a homeowner fired a single shotgun blast, breaking both his legs, when the suspect approached the man’s residence.
Residents of the area had been alerted that a manhunt was on for a bank robber loose in the vicinity.
A man walked into Peoples Bank of Paris at Lamar Avenue and Collegiate Drive about 4:40 p.m. on Thursday and asked a teller to give him money. Then he ran from the bank, clutching as many bundled bills as he could carry in two hands. He crossed Collegiate Drive, got into a pickup parked behind a car wash, and drove away with a woman companion.
A high-speed chase began on back roads south and east of Paris after Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Johnny Williams spotted a vehicle matching the one that several people saw drive away from the vicinity of the bank.
The pickup had a blowout on the right front tire during the chase, which came to an end off County Road 15650, which dead-ends at the Sulphur River. The pickup left the road and went across a hay meadow to a tree line on a creek, where the driver jumped out and ran into a wooded area, Williams said.
It was unclear whether Johnny Piper, 34, a native of Lamar County, would face any legal action for shooting Hammonds.
Typically, officials said, the law allows a person to protect himself and his property if approached in a threatening manner, with even more factors in play if the incident occurs at night.
The case might be presented to a Lamar County jury; that routinely happens in cases like this. For a grand jury to no-bill someone who had shot a suspect is common, officials said.
Hammonds has an arrest record dating back to 1993, with guilty pleas in five counties resulting in misdemeanor convictions for driving while intoxicated, theft over $200 but under $750, forgery to defraud or harm another, evading arrest or detention, theft over $500 but under $1,500, and theft over $50 but under $500.
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