Three banks were robbed in Davenport Wednesday morning — while President Bush and democratic presidential candidate John Kerry were appearing in the city. Davenport Police Captain David Struckman, head of the criminal investigation division, maintains that it’s not because there were too few officers on patrol. “We could have had twice the number of officers working on the street, and that’s still not going to lessen the liklihood of something taking place like that,” Struckman said. “When the media indicates that a town is being visited by a president and a senator — the top-running candidate for the job (of president) — you’re going to get that feeling that maybe everybody’s involved, and somebody makes the jump when they see a whole bunch of police officers in one area, that maybe the whole town must be unprotected.” Struckman said they had as many cops on the street Wednesday as they normally do, using officers who would have been off-duty and cops from investigative divisions to provide security for the President and Senator Kerry. Struckman said it appears none of the robberies was related to the other, as three separate suspects robbed the three banks. “It seems like three crimes of opportunity,” Struckman said. The suspect under arrest in the first bank robbery at the Ralston Family Credit Union is a man seen in a vehicle that ran a red light and sped off when officers tried to stop it. Cops say the man inside the car threw out items that were involved in the robbery.
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