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Police arrested a Georgia man whose visit to a local bank prompted an evacuation.
It happened when he allegedly sent one of the bank tellers a road flare via the vacuum tube in a drive-thru lane last month. Police say the flare looked like a destructive device.
Michael Aaron Bass, 26, is accused of simple assault and distributing a hoax device in connection with the incident, the Thomasville Times-Enterprise reported. Bass arrived on his motorcycle at the Synovus Bank drive-thru window around 9:30 a.m. to cash a check.
Bass received the cash and that’s when he’s accused of pulling a road flare from his motorcycle and sending it up the vacuum to the teller, authorities say.
Sgt. Scott Newberry, Thomasville Police Department Criminal Investigations Division assistant commander, explained to the Times-Enterprise:
“He [Bass] actually cashed a check that was to him from his employment…He stuck it [the road flare] into the vacuum tube and sent it to the teller, and he drove off.”
Newberry added that the flare resembled a destructive device, and the teller mistook it for a stick of dynamite. Police arrived at the scene and evacuated the bank, the Times-Enterprise reported. Bass was arrested about two hours later.