A man who robbed a Greek Town bank tried to escape by taking the CTA Blue Line, then jumped from an “L” platform and ran onto the Eisenhower Expressway before jumping into the back of a pickup truck when police tracked him down Monday, according to authorities.
Michael Tyner, 30, of Chicago, was arrested near Morgan Street on the Eisenhower Expressway about 5:15 p.m., after robbing a Fifth Third Bank branch, 100 S. Halsted St., of $3,240, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit filed as part of the charges against Tyner. Tyner appeared Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court in Chicago and was ordered held pending his next court date, according to FBI spokesman Garrett Croon.
The robber entered the bank through the main entrance on Halsted, went up to a teller window and handed a note to the teller, according to the affidavit.
“GIVE ME All Cash! No die Packs! And do not alert!” read the note.
The man then said something like “Give me large bills. Don’t give me any dye packs. Don’t press any buttons.”
The teller and another teller gave the man cash from their drawers, and one of them put a pile of cash on the counter, but the man looked at it and demanded more.
“Hundreds! Hundreds! I need hundreds!” he said.
The first teller then put all of the money from his drawer, including cash that included a tracking device, on the counter in front of the robber, and told the robber “That’s all there is.”
The robber put the money in a coat pocket and left the bank, leaving his demand note behind, according to the affidavit. The man ran south on Halsted.
Chicago police sent officers to the bank and started tracking the robber’s movements using the tracking device, figuring out that he was at the UIC-Halsted Street Station, between Morgan Street and Peoria Avenue, just before 5:15 p.m.
Officers went to the station platform and saw a man who matched the description of the robber, according to the affidavit. When officers started going toward the man, he jumped off the station platform, crossed the tracks, jumped over a concrete barrier and started running on the eastbound lanes of the Eisenhower Expressway.
The man, later identified as Tyer, threw off his hat and gloves and tried to get into two vehicles that were stopped on I-290, pulling the car door handles. Tyner then jumped into the cargo bed of a pickup that was stopped in traffic, but was arrested when officers caught up with him soon after, according to the affidavit.
The officers found a large bundle of cash in Tyner’s coat pocket, as well as a GPS tracking device hidden in the cash. Police also found a university identification card that identified him as Michael Tyner, and he told police that was his name.
The two tellers identified Tyner as the robber, and video stills from the robbery appeared to show he was the person who robbed the bank, according to the affidavit.
Tyner was being held by federal authorities Tuesday until his next court date, but his federal court docket was not yet available through the federal PACER online court information system.
