The recent arrest of two men suspected in a spree of Westchester bank robberies was the result of an unprecedented level of cooperation among law enforcement agencies in the county, according to Public Safety Commissioner George N. Longworth
After the brazen bank robbers struck in multiple communities, Longworth proposed that a special Westchester Bank Robbery Task Force be created to unify the investigations into the armed holdups. The county police provided space at headquarters in Hawthorne to permit detectives from eight agencies to work as a team under one roof.
"This approach could form a model for how we proceed in the future to investigate major crime patterns in Westchester that cross jurisdictional boundaries," Longworth said.
The Westchester Bank Robbery Task Force included investigators from the Briarcliff Manor, Bronxville, Carmel, Greenburgh, New York State Police, Tuckahoe, White Plains and Westchester County police departments as well as the FBI.
Longworth thanked the chiefs and commissioners of those agencies for their cooperation in establishing the task force and assigning some of their best detectives to it.
Bronxville Police Chief Christopher Satriale praised the task force detectives for the "exhaustive, labor-intensive investigation" that lead to the arrests. Two of the bank robberies occurred in his community.
"We needed to look for a shared services effort and pool resources and investigative leads. This was the perfect effort to combat the bank robberies," he said.
The multi-agency investigation resulted in the arrests on April 19 of two Bronx men suspected in seven armed robberies between November 2009 and March 2010 – six in Westchester County and one in Putnam County.
Early in the joint investigation, task force investigators developed information on a possible suspect and a vehicle that was used in the crimes. Subsequent investigation and surveillance lead to the arrest of Karriem R Barrow, who is currently on federal probation for a previous bank robbery, and Carl Farrington, 30.
Barrow, 37, and Farrington, 30, were formally charged in Federal Court in White Plains on April 20 with one of the bank robberies. Additional charges are anticipated.
"All the police agencies involved worked in unison to put a stop to these armed bank robberies in Westchester and Putnam Counties," said Greenburgh Police Chief Joseph DeCarlo.