Community Trust Bank Speaks Out After West Monroe Robbery
By: Alanna Quillen
Updated: February 13, 2013
WEST MONROE -- Community Trust Bank is speaking out after the robbery at one of their branches on Tuesday.
It happened around 5:30 p.m. on Cypress Street in West Monroe and ended in a shopping center parking lot just down the road.
Deputies say two men broke into a back window.
Workers, who were still at the bank closing up at the time, locked themselves into a vault and called the sheriff's department.
Kerry Gayfield, 28, and Mark Redmond, 19, are now charged with armed robbery in the case.
An executive at Community Trust says banks are easy targets -- but they prepare their teams for that.
"There are online courses that they take each year that deal with robberies, and bomb threats and other things that we may encounter," said Lonnie Scarborough, executive vice president of retail for Community Trust banks in the area. "We understand that we deal with money and it's a very popular commodity among criminals."
Scarborough says he's been involved in two robberies, and takes all experiences to make sure their people are prepared. He says they will take the event that happened yesterday and incorporate it into their training.
"Their foremost concern that we teach is their safety because money can be replaced," Scarborough said.
Scarborough says an incident has not happened before at the Community Trust on Cypress. He wants bank robbers to understand how easy it is to get caught.
"In all situations I've been involved in in my career, each of those people who committed the crime were captured," he said. "Some were captured fairly quickly such as the ones yesterday. All banks train for robberies, it's not like we come to work and don't expect that to happen."
It happened around 5:30 p.m. on Cypress Street in West Monroe and ended in a shopping center parking lot just down the road.
Deputies say two men broke into a back window.
Workers, who were still at the bank closing up at the time, locked themselves into a vault and called the sheriff's department.
Kerry Gayfield, 28, and Mark Redmond, 19, are now charged with armed robbery in the case.
An executive at Community Trust says banks are easy targets -- but they prepare their teams for that.
"There are online courses that they take each year that deal with robberies, and bomb threats and other things that we may encounter," said Lonnie Scarborough, executive vice president of retail for Community Trust banks in the area. "We understand that we deal with money and it's a very popular commodity among criminals."
Scarborough says he's been involved in two robberies, and takes all experiences to make sure their people are prepared. He says they will take the event that happened yesterday and incorporate it into their training.
"Their foremost concern that we teach is their safety because money can be replaced," Scarborough said.
Scarborough says an incident has not happened before at the Community Trust on Cypress. He wants bank robbers to understand how easy it is to get caught.
"In all situations I've been involved in in my career, each of those people who committed the crime were captured," he said. "Some were captured fairly quickly such as the ones yesterday. All banks train for robberies, it's not like we come to work and don't expect that to happen."
