Bank robbery suspect crashes Brookside garage sale

A man suspected of fleeing after robbing a bank burst into a Brookside home and then ran bleeding through a garage sale before police tackled him — with the help of a neighbor — in a nearby backyard Saturday.

The first startling moment for John Lynn was the sound of someone kicking at the French doors at the back of his home in the 600 block of East 65th Terrace.

Lynn stepped into the living room just as the man crashed through the glass doors and faced him, wheezing heavily and bleeding.

“He said, ‘Give me your car keys. I’ve got a gun,’” said Lynn, 41.

The bank robbery had occurred about a mile away at 10:40 a.m. at the Commerce Bank at 6336 Brookside Plaza. The Lynns were in the middle of a garage sale. Suzanne Lynn, 40, heard the noise, stepped into the house from the garage and saw the man in the kitchen.

Their 5-year-old daughter was just outside, and two garage sale customers were in the yard. Suzanne Lynn, who is pregnant, “due any day now,” ran out of the house, and one of the customers picked up the child and they all began to run across the street, she said.

But as they ran, they saw the man also running next to them across the street.

“So we turned,” she said, “and ran next door.”

Meanwhile, police had come swarming in. A neighbor joined in the chase and helped police bring the man down in Matt and Brooke Quinlan’s backyard, witnesses said.

“There was a lot of shouting and sirens,” Matt Quinlan, 29, said. Not “just another day in Brookside.”

The man was taken into custody by the police, an FBI spokeswoman said. The police said one of the officers suffered minor injuries.

The Lynns were “incredibly grateful” no one else was hurt. They had conversations with their daughter about the bad choices people sometimes make and how something like this will probably never happen again.

They wanted to calm their daughter’s nerves, and John Lynn also wanted to make sure his wife calmed down.

“I told her we’re not ready to have that baby today.”

This story was originally published May 16, 2015 at 8:45 PM with the headline "Bank robbery suspect crashes Brookside garage sale."