SWAT Team Searches Northwest Charlotte School For Bank Robber

Officers have cleared a north Charlotte elementary school after searching the building for a bank robber they feared may have gotten inside.

Someone saw a man matching the robber’s description entering the back of University Park Creative Arts on Hildebrand Street. The school was put on lockdown for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon and a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer was placed with the students the whole time.

A Special Weapon and Tactics team swarmed the building and did a thorough search, but the person matching the description turned out to be a school employee.

The children inside, who were participating in an after-school program, were released around 5:15 p.m.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman said the SWAT team is looking for the man who may have recently robbed the Wachovia branch on Kenilworth Avenue.

Authorities briefly detained a person on Statesville Avenue at Holland Avenue, but police released that person after determining he was not the bank robber.