Bank Branch

A masked gunman robbed a branch bank in a Millersville shopping center early Saturday, county police reported.According to the police report, the gunman walked into Carrollton Bank, in the 600 block of Old Mill Road in Northway Plaza, at 9:22 a.m. and ordered the tellers to the floor.He then took out a revolver and ordered the tellers to stand up and empty their cash drawers. The tellers gave the man the cash and he walked out.

Howard Bank has agreed to buy Cecil Bank's branch at 3 W. Bel Air Ave. in Aberdeen, the institutions announced Monday. Under the deal, Howard Bank, based in Ellicott City, will acquire at least $38 million in loans and $37.9 million in deposits from Cecil Bank. That's about 10 percent of Cecil Bank's deposits. "It was a fit for both of us," said Mary Halsey, Cecil's CEO. "They were looking to expand; we were looking to head back into Cecil County, where are roots are. " Howard Bank's CEO, Mary Ann Scully, said in a statement that the bank had been growing beyond its Howard County roots, and the branch acquisition will mark its entry into Harford County.

A robbery in the parking lot of a NationsBank branch in North Laurel was foiled Tuesday when the robber ran away before taking any cash, Howard County police said yesterday.A restaurant manager was confronted about 8: 35 p.m. by a man with a handgun at the bank in the 9800 block of Brewers Court as the manager tried to make a night deposit, a police report said.The gunman fled when he saw another car coming into the parking lot, and the manager was able to escape, police said.The gunman is described as a white male, 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 220 pounds and wearing a stocking mask, a black hooded sweat shirt and blue jeans.

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is following through on the Bard's famous statement that all the world is a stage. As if it weren't enough that this Ellicott City-based theater company already uses various Howard County sites for its indoor productions, it's moving ahead with its plan to convert a former bank building in downtown Baltimore into a new permanent home. When that new home opens in 2014, all of the company's indoor productions will be staged there. Its outdoor summer productions will continue to be done at the Patapsco Female Institute Historic Park in Ellicott City.

A man robbed a Frederick County National Bank branch office in Mount Airy on Wednesday and escaped with an undisclosed amount of money, authorities said.The man walked into the bank at Mount Airy Shopping Center in the 400 block of Ridgeville Blvd. at 2 p.m., announced the robbery and filled a white plastic bag with money from tellers' windows, state police said.Witnesses described the suspect as a thin black man, 25 to 30 years old, about 6 feet tall with a beard and mustache. He was wearing small round sunglasses, a maroon-and-white baseball cap, maroon-and-white polo shirt, blue jeans and white tennis shoes.

The FBI joined the Harford County Sheriff's Department in looking for a man who robbed a First Mariner Bank branch yesterday afternoon near Bel Air, leaving behind a package he said was a bomb.Authorities were also trying to determine whether the 1: 25 p.m. robbery at the bank office in the Festival Shopping Center south of Bel Air is related to four others at Harford banks since Aug. 20, said Sgt. Edward Hopkins, a department spokesman.Hopkins said the robber approached one of the two tellers on duty, telling her he had a bomb and implying that he had a gun. The teller gave him an undisclosed amount of money from her cash drawer, and he fled, leaving the package on the counter.

A man suspected of a robbery at the PNC Bank on Towson University's campus was apprehended Monday morning, according to Baltimore County police. Police said the robbery took place around 10:32 a.m. in the bank branch at the University Union. A man came into the bank and demanded money from a letter, but he did not show a weapon, police said. Police said he ran out with an undisclosed amount of cash. A county police officer saw a man matching his description sitting on a bench inside the Liberal Arts Building on campus, and after a brief chase, the man was taken into custody and the money was recovered, police said.

An ordinary red traffic signal in northeast Baltimore may have delayed two city police officers just long enough to allow two bank robbers to escape.The two men fled with $2,765, but the money was recovered.Northeast District Officers Robert Monroe and Todd Eibner had been en route to make a routine safety check at the Maryland National Bank branch in the 3400 block of Belair Road when they stopped for a traffic light around 12:15 p.m. yesterday, police said.Moments later, citizens flagged down the officers on Belair Road and told them Maryland National Bank had just been robbed and the thieves had fled on foot in the 2800 block of Lake Ave., police said.

spokesman said is "wearing us out" with 12 bank robberies in Maryland and three other mid-Atlantic states since early last month.Agent Larry Faust, a spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore office, said the unidentified man has robbed all of the banks using the same method: a fake bomb on the teller's counter.The most recent robbery took place Saturday in Lima, Pa., he said."I don't think I've ever seen one man rob this many banks this quickly in four states," said Faust. "He's a one-man wrecking crew when it comes to banks."

A dye-stained gunman yesterday eluded police after robbing a downtown bank branch, Baltimore police reported.The man entered the First National Bank branch in the 700 block of North Howard Street about 1:30 p.m. and robbed a teller, police said. He fled with the money in a bag that contained a concealed dye pack. After the dye pack exploded, the robber dropped the bag on the sidewalk and fled.

The Fallston branch of BB&T Bank was held up by a potentially armed robber Monday morning, Maryland State Police said. The robbery is the second since November at the same bank, which is less than a mile from the State Police Bel Air Barrack. Troopers from the Bel Air Barrack responded at 9:30 a.m. to the in the bank in the 1900 block of Belair Road for a report of an armed robbery, according to a media release from State Police. According to State Police, the robber displayed a note to the teller requesting money from the teller drawers.

In less than a year, there will be a Target in Canton. The discount chain announced this week that it will be opening a 135,000 square foot store in the Canton Crossing shopping center in October 2013. The store will have groceries in addition to the "everyday essentials" that Target is known for, the company said in a statement. The Canton Crossing center, off Boston Street between Baylis and South Haven streets, will have two anchors (Target is one) and is expected to have 30 businesses in all -- including seven or eight restaurants and a bank branch, according to the developer,  Chesapeake Real Estate Group LLC . The only Target currently within the city limits is at Mondawmin Mall, in northwest Baltimore.

Janet Browne, a retired designer who outfitted the interiors of colleges and banks during a lengthy career collaborating with her architect husband, died of congestive heart failure Oct. 12 at the Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. The longtime Guilford resident was 91. Born Janet Augusta Biedler in Baltimore and raised on Calvert Street in Charles Village, she attended Friends School and was a 1939 Western High School graduate. She then earned a degree in design from the Maryland Institute College of Art . She later earned a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

For some banks, green is more than just money.  PNC is wearing its commitment to green building on the exterior of its new Maryland headquarters downtown. The bank recently put the finishing touches on a massive "living wall" at One East Pratt Street. Measuring 84 feet tall by 24 feet wide, the wall is made up of 504 vertical planters filled with a variety of ground-cover plants, including phlox, euonymus and pachysandra, all arranged to form the image of a tree with the PNC logo at its base.  At 2,016 square feet, it's slightly smaller than the one gracing PNC's corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh.

The BB&T bank branch at the corner of Routes 165 and 152 in the Upper Cross Roads area of Fallston was robbed mid-morning Monday, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office. A suspect was taken into custody a short time after the robbery and remained jailed at the Harford County Detention Center in Bel Air Tuesday afternoon after a judge ordered him held without bond. Julius Elmo Montgomery, 30, of the 1800 block of Selvin Drive in Bel Air, has been charged with robbery and theft less than $1,000 in connection with the incident, a sheriff's office spokesperson said.

A man suspected of a robbery at the PNC Bank on Towson University's campus was apprehended Monday morning, according to Baltimore County police. Police said the robbery took place around 10:32 a.m. in the bank branch at the University Union. A man came into the bank and demanded money from a letter, but he did not show a weapon, police said. Police said he ran out with an undisclosed amount of cash. A county police officer saw a man matching his description sitting on a bench inside the Liberal Arts Building on campus, and after a brief chase, the man was taken into custody and the money was recovered, police said.

FBI officials released photographs yesterday of the man they believe robbed the First National Bank branch in the 400 block of Old Mill Road in Millersville on Thursday and the Crestar bank branch in the 100 block of Main St. in Annapolis on Feb. 3.Police believe the man also attempted to rob a Carrollton bank branch in the 8200 block of Veterans Highway on Thursday but was scared away by sirens from police cars going to another call.Moments later, First National, which is less than a half-mile away, was robbed.

Police in Baltimore County are looking for the men responsible for robberies at two PNC Bank branches, one Saturday in a supermarket and another last month at an assisted-living facility for the elderly. In the most recent incident, a man used a note to hold up a PNC branch in a Giant Food market on Loch Raven Boulevard in Towson. The man's face was captured by surveillance cameras shortly before 1:30 p.m. Saturday. A statement issued Monday by Baltimore County police said the man entered the store and passed a note to a bank teller in which he announced that he was committing a robbery.

SYKESVILLE — After moving a building called the Norwood Avenue House from Norwood Avenue to the William "Mac" McElroy parking lot on Oklahoma Avenue, refurbishing it, then spending more than a year trying to recruit a bank to open a branch there, the town of Sykesville is now entertaining the possibility of selling the structure. The house was initially moved to make way for an improved parking lot between Norwood Avenue and Main Street. The move and renovation were paid for with grant money the town received from the state.