United States v. Whitehead

567 F. App'x 758
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMay 27, 2014
DocketNo. 13-10658
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 567 F. App'x 758 (United States v. Whitehead) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Whitehead, 567 F. App'x 758 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Bryan Whitehead appeals his convictions and 471-month total sentence for two counts of bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), and two counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). After careful review of the entire record, and' with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm Whitehead’s convictions, but vacate Whitehead’s sentences and remand for re-sentencing.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This case involves Whitehead’s commission of two bank robberies that occurred within thirty miles of each other, two years apart. The first robbery occurred on May 1, 2010, at a Bank of America in Delray Beach, Florida. The second robbery occurred on May 21, 2012 at a BB & T Bank in Plantation, Florida. We discuss the facts of both of these robberies below.

A. May 1, 2010 Bank of America Robbery

On the morning of May 1, 2010, Whitehead entered the Delray Beach Bank of America, which had just opened for business, and shouted, “This is a bank robbery. Everybody get down. This is not a joke. This is the real deal.” Whitehead, a black male, had bare hands and wore a black mask to obscure his face, a safari hat over the mask, loose blue hospital scrubs, and a stethoscope around his neck. Whitehead was armed with a black semi-automatic gun.

Whitehead ordered the bank’s employees not to push any alarms. Whitehead vaulted over the counter that separated the tellers from the bank’s lobby. As he leapt over the counter, a black walkie-talkie fell from the pocket of his pants onto the ground. Whitehead did not retrieve the walkie-talkie off of the ground, and it remained there until law enforcement later discovered it.

Whitehead ordered the tellers to bring the money from their drawers to him, first removing any dye packs or tracking devices from the bills.1 While the tellers complied with Whitehead’s order, a bank customer started to exit the bank. Whitehead pointed the gun at the customer, stated that he was “not playing,” and racked the gun, letting those in the bank know the gun was loaded and ready to be fired.

[761]*761Whitehead ordered, at gunpoint, the bank’s assistant manager to take Whitehead to the bank’s vault, which was located in a separate room of the bank. All of the bank employees went to the vault with Whitehead. Once at the vault, the bank’s assistant manager and another bank employee opened the vault, emptied it of money, and put the money, along with the money from the tellers’ drawers, into a blue bag Whitehead had brought with him. Whitehead fled the bank with approximately $80,000 in cash in his bag and was not apprehended by law enforcement. Law enforcement was unable to determine the identity of the robber immediately following the robbery.

Law enforcement seized the walkie-talk-ie that Whitehead left behind and swabbed the walkie-talkie and its batteries for DNA. Two years later, after Whitehead’s arrest for the May 21, 2012 robbery, which we describe below, law enforcement determined that the DNA on those swabs belonged to Whitehead.

B. May 21, 2012 BB & T Bank Robbery

On the morning of May 21, 2012, Whitehead, wearing a mask to obscure his face, entered the Plantation BB & T Bank on Pine Island Road and ordered those in the bank to “get on the ground now.” Whitehead held a black semi-automatic gun and demanded that everyone put their hands in the air and refrain from pushing the silent alarm. Whitehead’s hands were bare and looked “ashy” and “cracked.”

This bank, unlike the Delray Beach branch of Bank of America, had bullet resistance glass that separated the tellers from the lobby and customers. Whitehead ordered a bank employee behind the glass to open the door that led to the tellers’ stations and the bank’s vault. The employee opened the door because she feared what Whitehead would do to the customers and bank employees in the lobby if she did not comply.

Once behind the glass, Whitehead emptied the tellers’ drawers of cash into a navy-blue- or black-colored laundry bag he carried with him. The bag was “similar” to the blue bag Whitehead carried during the 2010 Bank of America robbery. Whitehead then had a bank employee lead him to the bank’s vault, which was located in a separate room. Whitehead pointed his gun at that employee while she opened up the bank’s vault for Whitehead, and Whitehead then put the cash from the vault into his bag. Whitehead then fled the bank with almost $14,000 in cash.

C. The May 21, 2012 Perimeter Stop

While the May 2012 bank robbery was in progress, a 911 operator received a call that a robbery was occurring at the Plantation BB & T Bank located on Pine Island Road. At 9:29 AM, officers from the City of Plantation police department were dispatched to the scene. At 9:31 AM, an officer arrived on the scene, but Whitehead was gone. Witnesses informed law enforcement that Whitehead had crossed Pine Island Road on foot and disappeared behind hedges in front of an apartment complex. An officer ordered that a perimeter be set up around the surrounding streets “to contain the fleeing suspect[ ].”

Law enforcement set up a perimeter around the bank, but there was a gap in the perimeter at the Chevron gas station on the northwest corner of Pine Island Road and West Broward Boulevard, about four blocks from BB & T Bank. Drivers traveling south on Pine Island Road could turn into the gas station’s entrance on Pine Island Road before reaching the perimeter checkpoint set up at the intersection of Pine Island Road and West Broward Boulevard. These drivers could then drive through the gas station’s parking lot and [762]*762exit onto West Broward Boulevard in the westbound direction, thereby avoiding the perimeter checkpoint.

At approximately 9:34 AM, Sergeant Douglas Powell arrived at the Chevron gas station to fill the gap in the perimeter. Sergeant Powell parked his car at the West Broward Boulevard exit of the gas station and activated his overhead lights so that drivers could not leave the gas station without stopping at his checkpoint.

Sergeant Powell asked each driver who went through the checkpoint whether anyone had attempted to get in his or her car and looked at each driver to see if he or she matched the description of the suspect set forth in a police broadcast. The broadcast described the suspect as a black male, armed with a black handgun, in his early twenties “with a gray shirt, tan pants with a black belt, black shoes carrying a black bag.”2

The first few cars passed Sergeant Powell’s checkpoint without incident. Next, a gray truck pulled up to the checkpoint, and the driver, later determined to be Whitehead, rolled down his window. Sergeant Powell observed a black male driver, who appeared to be in his early twenties, was “sweating profusely” and not wearing a seat belt.

Based on Sergeant Powell’s observations and the fact that Whitehead was sweating profusely, despite it not being hot and no one else sweating to such an extreme degree, Sergeant Powell decided to investigate Whitehead’s identity and asked him for identification.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
567 F. App'x 758, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-whitehead-ca11-2014.