According to abcactionnews.com, detectives say 30-year-old Conrad Zdzierak used a mask known as “The Player” to alter his appearance and make him look African American.
Officers say the bank robber, known only as the “hairless” robber, targeted four banks and a CVS pharmacy in the span of three hours on April 9. Various police departments throughout Hamilton County were unable to catch the man because of his disguise.
“The suspect seen in the surveillance photographs and that we were looking for, we believed to be an African American male. The suspect was actually a male, white, who was wearing an elaborate disguise,” said Springdale Police Lieutenant Michael Mathis.
Investigators believe Zdzierak was likely eluding capture by taking off the mask between the robberies and driving to his next target all while police were searching for a black man. A Volvo seen driving away from one of the robberies matched the description of a car parked at an Extended Stay America Hotel. “The more we investigated the more promising it looked,” Mathis said.
Officers say the interior of the Volvo in the hotel parking lot was coated red from an exploded dye pack bank tellers had slipped into a bag used to hold the stolen money
Authorities obtained a search warrant and officers from various police departments and agents from the Cincinnati FBI office converged on the hotel. When police opened the Zdzierak’s hotel room door they encountered his pit bull, which bit one of the officers. The dog was shot and killed by an officer during the attack. The officer bitten by Zdzierak’s dog was not seriously injured.
Police found Zdzierak hiding in the bathroom.
Investigators say they found the mask, clothing worn during the robberies, and money with serial numbers matching bills stolen in the robberies. But it was the elaborate mask that police say Zdzierak used in the robberies that really got their attention. “He wore what I’m calling a ‘Hollywood quality’ mask,” Michael Mathis said. “These things cost $600-$700.”
Police arrested Zdzierak and charged him with six counts of aggravated robbery.
In addition to the five robberies he committed on April 9, police say Zdzierak robbed a bank on March 5. A few days after his first robbery, Zdzierak was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. “ Yes Zdzierak was arrested something a real black man could relate to but then he was bonded out of jail after that arrest. Go figure that out, could it be because he obviously didn’t fit the “profile of a criminal.”
“You are the type of villain we read about in novels and see in the movies,” Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Melissa Powers told Conrad Zdzierak when he appeared in court last Friday. She ordered him held on $3 million bond.
Can’t we finally all agree that racial profiling just doesn’t work? Especially when other non–black criminals realize the way to commit crime and get away is to CCWDB – commit crime while disguised as black. –l. martin pratt johnson
