Treutlen Bank Robbery

Treutlen County authorities are probing the threat of a school shooting and the attempted robbery of a bank which occurred within minutes of one another last

week in Soperton. “We are investigating these incidents separately but consider them very coincidental,” said Treutlen County Sheriff Thomas H. Corbin, noting officers concentrated at the school to investigate the shooting threat had to be redirected to the bank.

Corbin said his officers responded to the Treutlen County School, which houses grades K-12, around noon Wednesday, December 9, after someone called and continued from page

said “he was going to shoot up the school.” As officers arrived to investigate the threat, a call came in around 12:18 p.m. reporting an attempted robbery at the Colony Bank in Soperton.

Corbin said a man walked into the bank and handed a teller a note saying he had a gun and was robbing the bank. After the teller hit the alarm button, the suspect threw up his hands, turned around and ran out of the bank. “He walked to a road behind the bank and took off at a trot and was picked up down the road at Ivy Park (a city park). He never brandished a weapon,” Corbin said.

Corbin says the bank's legal team is reviewing the footage of the incident. The sheriff said the suspect’s face was covered in the video from the bank lobby. No one was injured in either incident, and police are currently tracking the number used to call in the threat.

The sheriff has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to assist in investigating the cases. “We are still following leads, and hopefully we will be putting someone in jail in the next day or two,” Corbin said.