Lunchtime in an area crawling with cops not best time to rob a bank

Christopher Washburn, 34, was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 bail today on charges he held up the Citizens Bank branch at 1 Center Plaza - across from City Hall and around the corner from BPD District A-1 - around 12:30 p.m. yesterday, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Unfortunately for Washburn, a Quincy resident, a plainclothes Boston police detective happened to be using the bank ATM just as he was fleeing, the DA's office says:

Acting on instinct, the detective followed the suspect left onto Somerset Street and down into a subterranean garage. Meanwhile, bank employees called 911 to report a robbery in progress and an officer nearby heard someone yelling, "Call the police!"

The plainclothes detective shouted that he was a police officer and ordered Washburn to stop. Washburn allegedly tossed his outer jacket and continued deeper into the garage to a set of elevators, where he is said to have threatened to stab the detective if he came any closer. The suspect tried to flee in the elevator but the detective placed his foot inside its door, preventing it from closing.

Washburn allegedly fled back out of the elevator and toward Somerset Street, where he briefly engaged the detective in a physical altercation. Officers and detectives from the nearby District A-1 station were on the scene to assist within seconds, as were Federal Protective Service officers from the John F. Kennedy Federal Building across the street and members of the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, who had just left the adjacent courthouse.

The branch, which was also robbed last May, is in the same building as the Boston office of the FBI. However, G-Men did not participate in the arrest.

Innocent, etc.