ROCKY HILL – It was like a chase scene out of an action movie.
Except this time it involved a bank robbery, a convicted felon and a fast-running state legislator. The chase ended with the suspect escaping, but police eventually tracked down the alleged thief and charged him seven months later.
Sen. Paul Doyle was sitting in the branch manager’s office on a routine afternoon last November at Webster Bank in Rocky Hill, where he handles banking transactions for his nearby law practice at least twice a week.
Suddenly, Doyle heard a scream in the lobby and rose from his seat to see what was happening.
At that point, he heard a woman shout, “He stole my money!”
Without thinking twice, Doyle, an accomplished track runner from his college days, cut across the lobby, burst through the bank doors and started chasing the man across busy, five-lane Cromwell Avenue. Running in a steady rain, crossing the street and then heading down an alley, Doyle reflexively blurted out, “Drop it!”
Doyle had no idea that the fleeing man, Christopher Lunn, has an extensive criminal history. He was charged previously with trying to run down five police officers on Cape Cod with a stolen construction excavator that ended only when police fired a bean bag that hit the side of his head, police said. And 15 days before the Rocky Hill bank robbery, Lunn allegedly robbed the same bank. Other previous arrests include charges of burglary, driving to endanger and breaking and entering, according to the Cape Cod Times.
The Rocky Hill woman who screamed was trying to deposit more than $700 in cash when police said Lunn brazenly reached over the counter and grabbed the money before bolting out the door.
Doyle followed, dodging cars on Cromwell Avenue, heading down an alley and continuing on a half-mile chase into the parking lot of the Starbucks plaza on Route 160.
“He knew where he was going, but I know this neighborhood, too,” said Doyle, whose legislative district includes Cromwell, Middletown, Newington, Rocky Hill and Wethersfield.
When Doyle again shouted, “Drop it!” the man “threw his hands up, dropping all of the cash in the middle of Elm Street,” according to a police report.
As Doyle scampered to pick up the cash, which was blowing down the street, Lunn ran off, Doyle told police. The man looked back to see if Doyle was still chasing him as the senator gathered the money.
The chase happened on Nov. 19, 2015, but it was not until seven months later, June 16, that Rocky Hill police arrested Lunn in prison when he “had completed his sentence for drug violations committed in Massachusetts,” police said. Rocky Hill police knew that Lunn was imprisoned in the Bay State, and they waited for his sentence to end before arresting him for the two bank robberies. Lunn “provided specific details of each incident,” police said.
Lunn, 32, of Massachusetts, is being held on $75,000 bail, and is scheduled to appear on Tuesday at Superior Court in New Britain. He has entered not guilty pleas for two second-degree robbery and two fifth-degree larceny charges, according to the state judicial website.
Det. Andrew O’Brien, who investigated the case, said that Lunn was not immediately recognized or identified – even though he was wearing no hat, sunglasses or disguise of any kind – because he lives out of state.
Lt. Robert Catania, the commander of the criminal investigations division, said he was not startled by Doyle’s actions.
“He saw a victim of a crime, and he just reacted in that manner,” Catania said. “His actions didn’t surprise me at all. He’s a very helpful guy and very supportive of law enforcement.
“He’s a very athletic guy. He’s an avid runner. It doesn’t surprise me that he had the ability to chase him down.”
After serving as captain of the track and cross country teams at Wethersfield High School, Doyle ran competitively at Colby College in Maine in the quarter-mile and half-mile runs.
Now 53 and recovered from three knee operations, Doyle has cut back on his running to twice a week, but he still works out seven days a week.
Bank employees are generally told not to chase robbers, and customers are often told to simply call police.
But Doyle said he would do the same thing again.
“It was impulsive,” Doyle said. “I’ll be honest. Running along, I started wondering – ‘I hope the guy doesn’t have a gun.’ I wasn’t thinking. It was instinct. I yelled at him twice and said, ‘Drop it!’ And the second time, I got within about six feet of him, and he threw it all up in the air. It’s instinctive. I didn’t have a detailed plan. Then I stopped and picked up all the money scattered all over the road.”
Wearing a tie and dress shoes, Doyle said he would have been much faster if he was wearing sneakers. A Democratic legislator for the past 21 years who served in the House before moving to the Senate in 2007, Doyle said he was aware that citizens are told to avoid bank robbery chases.
“Bankers aren’t supposed to” chase, Doyle said. “But I’m not a banker. I’m a lawyer. I was the longtime House chair of the banks committee.”
The move to chase Lunn was a split-second decision, and that thinking continued during the chase.
“The adrenaline is flowing,” Doyle said. “You don’t really think. You just act. I wasn’t really thinking. I was closing in on him. I probably would have tackled him, but can I say that was my plan? No.”
