Carson man describes Jan. 4 bank robbery

Carson City resident Mark Holder said he was inside the Topsy Lane Bank of America as it was being robbed on Jan. 4.The man accused in the robbery, Jarell Williams, 26, will undergo a psychological evaluation after he appeared before Senior Judge Charles McGee on Tuesday morning.Williams told McGee he’d never met his attorney, Kris Brown, who said they’d met twice.Holder said that it wasn’t immediately obvious that the bank was being robbed.“It was a real quiet deal,” he said. “If the bank lady’s hands hadn’t been shaking you wouldn’t have known there was a robbery.”Holder said he asked the teller if they were being robbed and she indicated they were. “The tellers were all looking at this with their eyes all big,” he said. “I asked her for my $20 and said ‘good luck,’ and she wished me luck, too.”Holder walked out of the bank and waited for the man later identified as Williams to leave.“When he came out of the bank, he was walking, and then he started to trot, and then about halfway to the Best Buy he started to run,” Holder said.The man ran up the road that goes from the Best Buy parking lot to Hilltop Church, where his car had the hood up.“He put the stuff in the car, put the hood down,” Holder said. “Once he got in, he was in acceleration mode.”Holder called the sheriff’s office with a description of the vehicle, which led to Williams’ arrest 15 minutes after the robbery.It was Holder’s description that went out on the scanner and was overheard by a woman who was at Mica and Highway 395 listening on her smart phone.She called dispatchers and told them which way the driver was headed and where he turned off the highway.Williams said he’d been in the hospital four times, the first time when he was 17.McGee found sufficient cause to have Williams evaluated to determine his competency to understand the charges against him and to aid in his defense.Williams will be taken to the Lake’s Crossing Center for the Mentally Disordered Offender in Sparks where he will be evaluated by two professionals, McGee said. He is being held on $300,000 bail.