Fleeing Harford armed robbery suspect ejected after SUV crashes in Joppa Friday afternoon

  • Police investigate at the scene of an accident on Route 40 in Joppa on Friday where a fleeing robbery suspect rolled over an SUV while being chased by a Harford County Sheriff's Deputy.
Police investigate at the scene of an accident on Route 40 in… (Photo courtsey of Sarah…)
April 20, 2013|AEGIS STAFF REPORT

Harford County sheriff's deputies chased a suspect who fled an armed robbery at a liquor store in the Bel Air area on Friday afternoon and later crashed his vehicle on Route 40 in the Joppa area.

The suspect, since identified only as a black male, rolled over a white SUV several times after clipping another vehicle turning at Route 40 and Pine Avenue, Eddie Hopkins, a spokesperson for the Harford County Sheriff's Office said.

Hopkins said shortly after 4 p.m. that details about the crime and the ensuing chase are still being gathered. Meanwhile, the person suspected in the robbery was flown by Maryland State Police Medevac to a regional trauma center with what Hopkins said were severe injuries after being ejected from the vehicle.

No other injuries to police or civilians were reported, according to Hopkins. Westbound Route 40 was shut down at Route 152 for several hours, while deputies investigated the crash scene.

Hopkins gave the following account of what police believe happened:

Around 3 p.m., a person wearing a burka, a mode of female dress that covers all but the eyes, walked into 3rd Base Liquors in the 2000 block of South Fountain Green Road in the Creswell area southeast of Bel Air and engaged the clerk in a discussion about beers, Hopkins said.

At some point, the visitor and the clerk walked to another part of the store, where the visitor asked the clerk for help lifting a case of beer.

"The suspect then pulled a gun and told the clerk to go to the register and demanded cash," Hopkins said. The clerk complied.

"The suspect talked in a high-pitched voice, but there is a belief they could have been a man trying to sound like a woman," Hopkins said.

Hopkins said the robber fled the scene in the white SUV and an alert citizen in the area became suspicious and got the tag number, phoning it in to the police.

A sheriff's deputy on patrol in the vicinity of Routes 40 and 755 in Edgewood saw the suspect vehicle heading west on Route 40, Hopkins said, and turned to give pursuit.

"It appears that the driver of the SUV saw the deputy turn and took then took off, crossing Mountain Road [Route 152] toward Baltimore County," Hopkins continued. "There was a vehicle preparing to turn at Pine Avenue, and the SUV clipped it and rolled over several times and the driver of the SUV was ejected."

There were no passengers in the SUV, according to Hopkins, who said the other driver involved in the accident was not injured.

Hopkins said investigators are checking for any potential connections between the liquor store robbery and an armed of a convenience store and gas station robbery shortly after 8 a.m. Friday in the Campus Hills area, not far from where the latter hold-up occurred.

In the first robbery, the suspect was described as a white man, who fled the area also in an SUV, after holding up the Xtra Mart in Campus Hills Shopping Center with a handgun.

Hopkins said both robberies remain under investigation. The man involved in the chase had not been charged as of late Saturday morning.

Check back with http://www.exploreharford.com for updates.

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