Bank robbery could be Aurora's first of 2011

AURORA | A robbery last week at a TCF Bank near East Sixth Avenue and Chambers Road may have been Aurora’s first bank robbery of 2011. 

There have been at least a dozen bank robberies reported in the metro area since the first of the year, but, based on a quick search of FBI press releases, none occurred in Aurora. 

The last Aurora robbery, based on the search, happened Dec. 13, 2010, at the Bank of the West at 1389 S. Havana St. 

In that robbery, two suspects, armed with handguns and wearing hooded sweatshirts, gloves and bandanas over their faces, stormed the bank and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash. 

Investigators dubbed the pair the “3-2-1 Bandits,” but a spokesman for the FBI in Denver declined to say why investigators chose that name. One of the robbers is also a suspect in a separate December robbery at a bank in Englewood. 

In Friday’s robbery, police arrested Thomas Peels, 41, on robbery charges.