Wounded victims describe fatal bank robbery

David Vance (Tribune file / July 14, 2011)

A retired school teacher and security guard calmly recounted in federal court today how they were shot and wounded four years ago when three masked men stormed into a Chatham neighborhood bank.

One of the alleged suspects, David Vance, is on trial in federal court in connection with the takeover robbery in which teller Tramaine Gibson was fatally shot.

Customer Dorothy Sanders told jurors she realized a bank robbery was underway that day in May 2007 when she saw a man running inside Illinois Federal Savings and Loan as she met with the branch manager.

"I started standing up, getting ready to go out the door," she recalled. “I knew I was in a bank robbery, so that's why I put my wallet in my bra. ... Next thing I knew I was in the ambulance."

Vance allegedly shot Gibson, 23, after he was unable to open a vault in the bank in the 8700 block of South Martin Luther King Drive. Two accomplices engaged in a shootout, wounding Sanders and a security guard.

Sanders described softly but matter-of-factly the gunshot wounds to her left arm that ended up lodged in her right side.

The security guard, Earl Coleman, also testified today that he was shot twice as he exchanged fire with the gunmen.

"The first thing I saw was one of the bank robbers jump over the teller counter," Coleman said as an enlarged image of surveillance tape of the armed gunman was displayed on a screen in the federal courtroom.

"The only way I knew they was armed was when they started shooting at me," Coleman said of the three suspects.

Coleman, who had worked at the bank since 2000, said he fired six shots from his .357 Smith and Wesson.