WEST CHESTER TWP. — As a public servant for 35 years, Fire Chief Jim Detherage has put out plenty of blazes and even arrested a few bad guys as a patrol cop.

        But on Wednesday the township's top firefighter helped nab a suspected serial bank robber who police say held up two banks that morning, and a third earlier this year in West Chester.

Detherage

        “Instead of catching bank robbers, I should have been in here catching up with my paperwork, but that's no fun,” Chief Detherage quipped Wednesday afternoon, gesturing to his paper-covered desk at fire headquarters.

        Vincent Natale, 19, of Liberty Township, was charged with three counts of robbery in holdups at the Provident Bank on Tylers Corner Drive and the U.S. Bank on Cox Road on Wednesday, and another U.S. Bank branch, formerly Firstar, in West Chester off Tylers Corner Drive, in March.

        “I am just glad anybody saw him,” West Chester Police Sgt. Matt Brillhart said. “I wouldn't care if it was a monkey. If someone robs two banks, someone needs to do something.”

        Wearing a fake moustache, sunglasses, black suit and derby hat, the robber burst into the banks within 10 minutes of each other just before 10 a.m. Wednesday and ordered tellers to put cash in a bag, police said. He did not display a weapon in either robbery, police said, but a plastic, toy gun later was recovered from Mr. Natale's white, late-model Ford Tempo.

Natale

        Chief Detherage heard of the first bank robbery on the police radio as he drove north on Cox Road in his department vehicle. He spotted a white Ford Tempo driving toward him but didn't realize it could be the robber until a few moments later when a suspect description of the robber and the car was broadcast.

        He turned his car around and spotted the Tempo moments later parked in the U.S. Bank lot.

        “He was coming out of the bank carrying in both his arms a white bag filled with money or something,” said Chief Detherage, 55, who used to be a patrol officer for Lockland and West Chester police departments.

        While alerting the police dispatcher he that he was following a robbery suspect, he said he distantly tailed the Tempo down U.S. 42 into Sharonville.

        Mr. Natale pulled into the parking lot of a Fifth Third Bank on Reading Road and began walking toward the bank, the chief said.

        But when a Sharonville police cruiser swung into the lot, the suspect fled in his car on Reading Road, onto Interstate 275 east toward Interstate 71, the chief said.

        Sharonville police and Chief Detherage followed him, but the chief fell back after the chase escalated to higher speeds.

        “They didn't need me anymore,” he said. Sharonville police eventually chased Mr. Vitale back onto Reading Road and deployed stop sticks onto the road in front of the Sharonville Post Office to halt his car.

        He was taken into custody without incident. Mr. Natale reportedly told police that his parents had told him to get a summer job to pay for college.

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