President of Troy, Mo., bank pulls gun, nabs masked robber in parking lot

TROY, Mo. • David W. Thompson, the president of a Troy bank, was in his office Tuesday afternoon talking with a salesman about advertising when his receptionist buzzed him with an emergency.

"David, we've got a problem," she told him.

Thompson said he looked out his office window into the bank lobby of Peoples Bank & Trust. He saw that his tellers looked fearful. And he saw a man wearing a heavy jacket and a ghoulish Halloween mask calmly walk away from the tellers, carrying one of the bank's money bags.

Thompson, 58, followed the man outside, onto the parking lot, and locked the bank door behind him.

Thompson let the robber get to his truck — then Thompson pulled his personal handgun, a Colt .380, and pointed it at the robber's face before he could drive away, he told the Post-Dispatch.

"Sir, get out of the truck," Thompson remembers demanding. "You're not going anywhere."

And when the man put his hand in his jacket pocket, as if he had a weapon, Thompson scolded him again.

"You don't want to go there," Thompson implored. "This will end badly."

By that time, another bank official who also carries a concealed weapon had joined Thompson on the lot.

"Now you have two guns on you," Thompson said. "Don't try anything."

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