Bank robbery suspect shot and killed after crashing a stolen truck into a police cruiser, then confronting officers in Mesa, Arizona

A bank robbery that ended with the suspect escaping on a bicycle led to a carjacking, a collision with police and a fatal officer-involved shooting Tuesday morning in a swath of the southeast Valley that encompassed Gilbert, Mesa and unincorporated areas. The suspect, who police could only identify as a man in his 50s or 60s, was shot and killed in an apartment complex parking lot near Crismon and Broadway roads after he turned and showed a Gilbert police officer a gun, according to a Gilbert police spokesman. A Gilbert police officer suffered minor injuries earlier in the chase when the suspect drove a stolen Dodge pickup into the officer’s car, Sanger said. No one else was injured in the incident, which took police on a six-mile pursuit through the southeast Valley. The series of events began with a robbery at a Bank of America branch near Baseline and Power roads on Tuesday morning when a man held up the bank and used a bicycle as his getaway vehicle, Sanger said. Police then received a call about a carjacking that occurred in a shopping center parking lot near Crismon Road and Main Street when a caller reported that a man had stolen a Dodge pickup. Officers encountered the truck in an area of Mesa near Signal Butte and Broadway roads where the suspect collided with a Gilbert police officer, Sanger said. The truck lost a tire in the collision, Sanger said, and the suspect drove east along Broadway road with only three tires until he got the apartment complex. Once at the complex, the suspect emerged from the truck and “displayed a lethal threat” at two different Gilbert officers who shot the man, Sanger said.