An Oak Park, Illinois senior couple were terrified and upset when police officers surrounded their car in a parking lot after leaving their bank.
The elderly couple was handcuffed and placed in separate cars after being mistaken for bank robbers.
OAK PARK, Illinois — A couple is upset and shaken up after police swarmed their car in a parking lot after they left their normal bank.
Ottis Dugar, 86, and his 67-year-old wife Demitri still can’t believe they were mistaken for armed thieves.
The two great-grandparents said they were handcuffed and detained for about 40 minutes.
Ottis is a Korean War veteran with glaucoma and Demitri is diabetic. They said the incident happened after they left their bank. Demtiri was driving Ottis to a Denny’s when they were surrounded by Oak Park and River Forest police, all with guns drawn.
“Yelling, ‘Get out of the car! Put your hands up!’ And when I’m having a bad knee, I cannot get out,” Demitri said. “They asked me, ‘Who’s in the car?’ I said my husband. ‘What’s his name?’ I said it’s Ottis. ‘Does he have a gun in the car?’ I said no, we don’t have any guns. ‘Well if he’s got a gun in the car we’re going to shoot him!'”
The couple said they were handcuffed in separate vehicles, detained for about 40 minutes and ordered out of the cars several times to be identified by bank witnesses.
In a statement the Village of Oak Park said the incident “was a case of mistaken identity based on the initial report of an eyewitness to an armed robbery” and that the “witness continued to say the individuals were the ones seen leaving the bank.
This proves that no matter how young or how old you are, you could always get caught up in the middle of a search.
Sometimes it takes only a little common sense from the authorities to carry out their duties. It would have been a lot smoother.
