Batavians React to Bank Robbery at Old Second National

Batavia residents were disturbed last week with the news that a bank in town had been robbed at gunpoint.

Resident Michelle Brogan was on her way to pick up some pizzas Dec. 22 when she saw police vehicles and cones blocking the entrance to Old Second National Bank on Batavia's east side.

"It does make me nervous," Brogan said.

At about 10 a.m. on Dec. 22, a man whose face was mostly covered walked into the bank with a black semi-automatic handgun. He left the bank with an unknown amount of cash and fled in a small four-door white or light-colored sedan, according to police.

Batavia police and the FBI continue to investigate the robbery. No new information on the incident was released this week.

Here was some of the reaction on Facebook:

Sarah Beck: "Omg! Way (too) close to home!"

Wendy Coyle: "I wondered what was going on...assumed robbery; saw 3 squad cars there then passed another heading towards the bank on Wilson...around 11am."

Tina Marie: "People are crazy"

Brogan and her family live in the Johnson Woods neighborhood directly east of the bank property. Their backyard faces the bank's drive-thru area.

Brogan could not recall any previous robberies or other incidents at the bank. She hears more about bank robberies in Chicago than in Batavia.

"It's been a relatively safe neighborhood—there's a lot of traffic along the road there," she said, pointing towards Wilson Street.

Like the Brogans, Gwendolyn Marshall's family has also lived in Johnson Woods for seven years. Marshall said the only brushes with crime in the neighborhood have been recent—the Dec. 22 bank robbery and a suspicious incident earlier this month with a group of men who walked toward her unopened garage at night.

From indoors Marshall's husband noticed one man walk over to the garage and then walk back to a red Lincoln Navigator parked outside on Johnson Woods Drive. The man was then joined by two to three other men in their 20s. As they headed towards the garage, Marshall's husband went outside to confront them. As he threatened to call the police, the men took off running back to the Navigator.

Since her husband's encounter with the men, Marshall made sure to tell her neighbors about the incident, and to never leave their garages open again.

"You have to be careful," she said. "We got comfortable over here."

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