Published on Thursday, March 2, 2006
in the Leesburg Daily Commercial

Cornered in Orlando, suspect in Lake bank holdup kills himself

ORLANDO — A 27-year-old bank robber committed suicide after a lengthy police chase Wednesday.

Around 12:20 p.m. Wednesday, a man identified as Ricardo Alan Nieves of Davenport entered a Bank of America located at 518 U.S. Highway 27, just north of U.S. Highway 192 in Four Corners near Clermont.

“He did not produce a weapon, but he made it clear he was robbing the bank by his dress and he opened a black bag and demanded money,” said Detective Corporal Dan Conlee, violent crimes detective with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

After fleeing the scene in what witnesses described as a gold Saturn station wagon, Nieves was spotted in Polk County by the Florida Highway Patrol and troopers attempted to make a traffic stop.

Nieves refused to stop, and got on eastbound Interstate 4. Troopers pusued him on I-4 into Orange County, where he got onto the State Road 408 expressway and headed east. Troopers chased him through Orlando onto Michigan Avenue and back under I-4, into the Holden Heights area of Orlando, where Orange County deputies were in the process of putting stop sticks at the intersection of Michigan Street and Orange Blossom Trail, according to Sgt. Jorge Delahoz of the Florida Highway Patrol.

“He made a U-turn to avoid the stop sticks,” Delahoz said.

A trooper then bumped the side of the vehicle in an attempt to apprehend Nieves and an Orange County deputy sheriff approached his Saturn head-on. Nieves was surrounded, but attempted to flee again.

“He hit the gas and rammed the deputy head-on,” said Delahoz.

“I saw him coming with three state troopers behind him. He spun one trooper and hit one on the side. This was like in the movies,” said Joe Gianni, an employee at Printing World, next door to the scene.

Officers then approached the vehicle with their weapons drawn and Nieves picked up a kitchen knife and began stabbing himself in the neck repeatedly, said Delahoz.

Deputies broke a window to remove Nieves and the fire department transported him to Orlando Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. Nieves had two children with his ex-wife and two brothers, one in Orange County and one in Polk County, according to Delahoz.

Crime scene technicians recovered a black bag with currency inside and detectives are confident that it is the same money stolen from the bank. “There was quite a bit of money in the bag. This is our robber, but the investigation is still pending,” said Conlee.

Delahoz, however, described the money as “about what you would make in two weeks at a job.”

According to Delahoz, Nieves had an extensive criminal history, including aggravated assault, battery and a prior robbery.

“If he’s willing to kill himself so easily, he wouldn’t hesitate to take someone else who got in his way,” said Delahoz.