Above: Yosef Tadale (left) and Yohannes Surafel (right) were
arrested and charged with kidnapping, assault, and conspiracy
to commit armed robbery after police say they held a family
hostage.
DC Examiner
By Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
1/7/09
U.S. marshals continue to hunt for a college student accused of abducting a Prince George’s County family in a failed bank robbery scheme last month.
Authorities are asking for the public’s help in capturing Beruk Ayalneh, 24. Ayalneh was one of three men who allegedly broke into the home of an assistant bank manager last month and held the woman, her husband and two boys at gunpoint overnight. The other two suspects, Yosef Tadele, 23, of Silver Spring and Yohannes T. Surafel, 24, of the District remain behind bars on kidnapping, armed robbery and assault charges.
Beruk Ayalneh
Police say the trio’s plan was to keep the children, ages 8 and 11, as hostages and force the woman to take money from the SunTrust branch where she worked in Silver Spring. The father convinced the robbers to allow them to bring the children with them to the bank.
But on the way, the father, James Spruill, foiled the plot after he saw a Maryland state trooper. Spruill began driving erratically until the trooper flashed on his cruiser’s emergency lights. Only one of the kidnappers, Surafel, was in the vehicle, but his gun was trained on the 11-year-old boy.
When the trooper asked Spruill for his license, the father jumped at the gunman and pinned him down.
U.S. marshals hope Ayalneh, who is a student at Howard University and has no criminal history, will surrender. Surafel has already tried to kill himself in a holding cell in the College Park barracks, police said.
“[Ayalneh] is not a sophisticated criminal mastermind who’s well-schooled in running and hiding,” said Matthew Burke, supervisory inspector with the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force. “We hope his inexperience will help us.”
Ayalneh, who is a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian descent, is from the Northern Virginia area and has ties to D.C. and the Maryland suburbs. He is 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds.
Anyone with information on Ayalneh’s whereabouts can call the U.S. Marshals Service at 301-489-1717 or 800-336-0102. Law enforcement authorities are offering a reward for information leading to Lee’s arrest.
The Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, run by the U.S. Marshals Service, is composed of 28 federal, state and local agencies from Baltimore to Norfolk. The unit has captured 19,000 wanted fugitives since its creation in 2004.
CNN VIDEO
A bank robbery scheme was cut short by a quick-thinking family man. WJLA reports.
You do the crime, you pay the price
Shame. Shameful. Your family (if you have one) must be embarrassed and scornful of your actions. I, as an Ethiopian, deride your terrible deeds and condemn you to your fate. Thank God the victims (father and son) are physically unhurt.
Shame
Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged! And Let He Who is without Sin Cast the First Stone.
you ethiopians are so judgemental is so halarious!!!! i’m an ethiopian american myself, and it kills me to see how judgemental people can be, when in reality if it was your child, you’d be goin insane and filled with grieve, so have compassion for people…nobody is perfect. just because they are ethiopians doesn’t mean they have to be held to such high standards. i grew up with all three of them and two of them were my classmates…they are good people, that just made one mistake…nobody knows the real story except for them..
if u can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. tryin not to be judgemental, but crime is crime. it doesnt’ matter if u r ethiopian, or utopian.