Suspect shot by police at Romeoville bank took hostages, demanded police response: cops

The armed suspect who entered a Romeoville bank on Tuesday took hostages and demanded police respond to the building before he was shot and killed by a Will County SWAT team member, authorities said.

Romeoville police and Will County SWAT responded to multiple calls of shots fired within the Fifth Third Bank at 275 S. Weber Road at around 3:40 p.m. The callers said there was a man with a gun inside who had taken hostages and demanded that officers respond to the location, according to a news release from the Will County Sheriff’s Office.

Two Sheriff’s Office spokespeople said they were unsure exactly how many hostages were in the building at the time the suspect entered.

Romeoville police also initially said the incident did not appear to be an attempted robbery.

Romeoville police officers were first to respond and established a perimeter around the bank. The officers were able to communicate with the suspect who agreed to allow the hostages inside the bank to walk out. The police spokespeople said none of the hostages were injured during the incident.

Will County SWAT crisis negotiators and tactical team members arrived at the scene. At one point, members of the SWAT team set up in front of the building in an armored rescue vehicle “in anticipation of the suspect exiting,” according to the release.

As the suspect began to exit the building, a member of the Will County SWAT team fired one round, striking the suspect.

Police said the suspect did not fire at police.

He was transported to the AMITA Health Adventist Medical Center in Bolingbrook, Will County Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Dan Jungles said, where he was pronounced dead.

The Sheriff’s Office added in its release the investigation into the shooting of the suspect has been turned over to Illinois State Police.

Typically, if a police officer from a local agency shoots someone, the Will/Grundy County Major Crimes Task Force handles the investigation. Jungles said, however, that multiple agencies were part of the Will County SWAT team that was assembled to respond to the situation at the bank on Tuesday.

State law disallows a police shooting investigation from being handled by an investigator from an agency involved in the incident. Jungles said since there were six local agencies involved in the SWAT team response, which precludes members of the task force from any of those agencies conducting the investigation.

So the Illinois State Police were requested to handle the case “in order to avoid a conflict of interest,” police said in the release.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, the Will County Coroner’s Office had not released the name of the suspect as the agency was attempting to notify his family members, according to the news release.