Man Is Charged in Bank Standoff

EXETER, Calif. —  A man who kept a group of bank employees hostage for more than 10 hours with a pellet gun was held Thursday on charges of bank robbery and seven counts of hostage-taking, authorities said.

Jess R. Martinez, 47, of Visalia was arrested about 3:30 a.m. after he sent the last of his eight hostages out to fetch a pack of cigarettes police left outside the front door, Exeter Police Chief Clifton Bush said.

SWAT officers pulled the woman to safety and stormed the bank when she came out to pick up the cigarettes, authorities said.

No one was injured in the standoff, which began about 5:10 p.m. Wednesday when Martinez, an unemployed car salesman, entered the Bank of America branch with a briefcase and a pellet gun, then handed a teller a note demanding cash.

It was not the first time Martinez had been involved in an armed bank holdup, according to court documents.

During the 1990s, he pleaded guilty to armed bank robbery in New Mexico and served time in federal prison. After escaping from a halfway house in Albuquerque, he was captured three years later, in 1997, and sent back to prison, according to court documents.

The standoff in Exeter began when bank employees triggered a robbery alarm to summon police, who arrived to find Martinez leaving the vault area with the employees as a shield, Bush said.

Negotiators persuaded him to release a man and a mother with her child almost immediately.

About 10 p.m., two female hostages were released in exchange for fried chicken. Martinez, described as calm and polite, allowed the three remaining female hostages to eat first, Bush said.

By that time, the bank workers had “secretly planned to escape together if the suspect diverted his attention for any reason,” Bush said.

They did just that after midnight.

Two of the women made it out the door, but Martinez grabbed the third and pulled her back into the bank, Bush said. Later, when Martinez asked for cigarettes, police put them on the sidewalk about three feet from the door. A SWAT team member pulled the woman to safety as she reached for them.

“It’s a great conclusion to a very long incident,” Tulare County Sheriff’s Lt. Keith Douglass said. “This is a great ending for everybody involved.”

Martinez was held Thursday at the County Jail. His arraignment was scheduled for Monday.