Secret Service arrested robbery suspect in 2010

Associated Press

PHOENIX

A man suspected in a weeklong bank robbery spree that spanned from Georgia to Arizona and included the shooting death of a Mississippi police officer was arrested in 2010 after making online threats against the president, a Secret Service spokesman said Sunday.

Mario Edward Garnett was living in Oklahoma City at the time of the arrest, Secret Service spokesman Max Millien said. He would not say how the case was resolved.

Authorities have connected Garnett to a Dec. 23 bank robbery attempt in Atlanta, a bank robbery later that same day in Tupelo, Miss., and the shooting death of one officer and the wounding of another just after the Tupelo robbery.

A Phoenix detective shot and killed Garnett just after he robbed a bank Saturday morning.

Phoenix police spokesman James Holmes said at a Sunday news conference that the 40-year-old Garnett was from the Midwest, had served for four years in the U.S. Army and appeared to have no friends or relatives in Arizona.

Earlier Sunday, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Jackson, Miss., said that records showed the suspect’s cellphone was in Atlanta, Phoenix and Tupelo at the time of each incident. The agent, Daniel McMullen, also told reporters that there were “numerous similarities” between the three bank robberies, including the clothing worn by the suspect and statements he made.