Fouad Sethna was anticipating a trip to a coffee shop and a quiet Sunday morning when he heard the police radios chattering outside his window.
Instead, he spent a tense morning sitting in his apartment as police, who believed a suspect could be holed up in the building, surrounded the house as they looked for a man who robbed a nearby TCF Bank.
No one was injured in the incident and the suspect eluded capture.
The robbery happened at about 10:20 a.m.
“One male suspect came in and passed a note to the teller implying he had a handgun,” Denver Police spokesman Vicki Ferrari said of the robbery.
The suspect, a tall, dark-skinned man with a slender build, who was wearing a red hat, baggy tan shorts and sunglasses, was last seen running south toward 17th Avenue.
Police from Edgewater and Denver tracked the thief to the large brick ranch house at 4510 W. 16th St., converted into four apartment, where Sethna and his wife live.
Believing the suspect could be in the house, police surrounded the structure and initiated a reverse 911 call telling residents in a six block radius to stay in their homes.
Sethna, 32, said an officer outside his window told occupants of the apartments to stay indoors.
A few minutes later he called 911 and asked what he should do. “They said stay indoors and wait until police give you directions.”
After waiting an hour, Sethna called 911 again. He told the operator “there are a lot of officers with weapons drawn, do you want me to come out?”
After he hung up one of the officers present on the scene called Sethna’s mobile phone. Sethna stepped out his back door holding the phone and put his hands in the air.
He was cuffed, then released after his wife, who was outside, identified him and police compared him to video of the robbery they had.
Police were courteous and professional, Sethna said. “As far as I was concerned, their treatment of me was entirely fair.”
Dan Porreco, 75, who has owned the house for 30 years, said nothing like that had ever happened there before. “Thank God it ended this way,” he said.
Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com.
