Dynamite-Laden Bandit Shot In Bank Hold-up

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28223, 11 March 1957, Page 9

Dynamite-Laden Bandit Shot In Bank Hold-up

(Rec. 11 p.m.) MONTREAL, March 9. A wierdly masked young man, carrying enough dynamite to wreck a city block, was shot down by police yesterday as he threatened to blow up a bank building. “You may have me now,” the wounded bandit told police, “But at 4.45 p.m. three places in the city are going to be blown to kingdom come.” There were no explosions at that hour, but a key found on the youth led police to a time bomb overdue to go off at Montreal's busy Central Station. Fearful that other bombs might have been planted in public buildings in the pattern of New York’s “mad bomber” scare, police made a widespread search. They failed to find anything else. The youth, identified as Andre Deblois. aged 21, was shot through the neck and wounded seriously after he had held up employees and patrons of a Toronto-Domin-ion Bank branch with a revolver for 20 minutes. Waving his gun, he had threatened to blow up the building with 39 sticks of dynamite fastened to his body and attached to a wire contraption on his head. The youth had a nylon stocking mask pulled over his head and was wearing a false nose, dummy glases and a bathing cap. Police said that he carried enough dynamite to raze the bank building and damage others in the I vicinity. Police and bank officials said that the man drove up to the ■ bank in a stolen taxicab. Entering the building, he ordered the employees and four patrons to stand still. He then told the bank manager, Mr John

McFarlane, to lock the front door. Mr McFarlane offered the gunman money if he would leave, but the latter opened his coat and revealed the sticks of dynamite in his overalls. “Go ahead and shoot me if ypu like. If I die, a thousand people will die with me,” the youth said. He told the manager to bring out two chairs and get two “police chiefs” to sit in them. He then thrust his revolver into Mr McFarlane’S back and tried to push him into the vault. As he did so. the manager jumped aside and threw the alarm switch. The signal brought police to the building within a few minutes. The gunman fired a shot into the ceiling, yelling, “Tell the police to drop their guns and come inside.” Police fired through the glass front, hitting the gunman. Sergeant Leo Plouffe, police bomb expert who dismantled the explosive device found in a parcel locked at the railway station, said that it was still “live and dangerous.” It apparently misfired because of some mechanical defect.

He said that it consisted of five sticks of dynamite expertly wired to a detonator and an alarm clock set to go off at 5 p.m.