By Margie M. Palmer | SDUN Reporter
San Diego Police arrested transient Jeffery Mann, 47, outside the Wells Fargo Bank at the Uptown Shopping Center, on April 18, charging him with assault with a deadly weapon and violating parole.
San Diego Police Department Detective Gary Hassen said that Mann assaulted another transient, 43-year-old Richard Sauer, in the groin area with a claw hammer during an argument. Sauer suffered a swollen left testicle.
Police impounded the hammer as evidence. Off-duty parole officer Marsha Gresko was inside the Wells Fargo Bank branch during the altercation and intervened to help take Mann into custody. Gresko was unavailable to comment for this story; however, bank patrons said they thought the incident was an attempted robbery.
“I was talking with one of the branch managers at a desk when [the branch manager] suddenly screamed for everyone to get down,” said Wells Fargo customer Tim Parks. “There was a man with a hammer, and we saw a woman pull a gun on him and had him get down on the ground. We were all shuffled to the back of the bank, and no one was allowed to leave until after the police showed up and allowed us to go.”
The Cleveland Ave. branch has already been robbed twice this year. Both incidents, the first on Feb. 24 and the second on March 2, took place between noon and 1 p.m. The suspect in both robberies is a clean-shaven Caucasian male in his mid 20s. He remains at large.
Mann is being detained at the George Bailey Detention Facility. Court records indicate he is scheduled to appear before the Central Division Court on April 29.
