news-record.com

Local police scored two big victories Monday, one very noisy and the other quiet.

The noisy one was Greensboro police chasing down a pair of alleged bank robbers along busy city streets at rush hour. The pursuit, punctuated by gunfire, ended in a crash and shootout. One heroic officer and both suspects were injured, one fatally.

More quiet was the arrest by N.C. A&T police of Isaam Mattaay Chaplin, 27, after a minor incident on campus. He was held on a Greensboro police warrant for questioning and Tuesday was identified as the suspect in the Dec. 15 murder of a Brink's security employee at Friendly Center.

That killing and robbery of Juan Estaban Solado was one of Greensboro's most notorious unsolved crimes of 2008. It terrified holiday shoppers for its brazenness. A gunman approached Estaban after he made a Monday morning pickup of cash at the Old Navy store, shot him and made a quick escape. Police say Chaplin once worked at the store. He was jailed without bond and should face a charge of first-degree murder.

The action following Monday's robbery of a Wachovia bank on High Point Road was worthy of Hollywood. Someone in the getaway car reportedly fired at pursuing police officers as the chase led north on Holden Road, then west on Patterson Street. It stopped where Officer M.P. O'Hal bravely rolled out a device for puncturing tires but was struck by the suspects' vehicle and then shot as more gunfire ensued. O'Hal, reported in stable condition Tuesday, deserves an award for valor.

Both suspects were wounded by police gunfire. Dimarkchrisy Eddie Majors, 22, died Monday night. Christopher O'Neal Patterson, 23, was hospitalized. Both have lengthy criminal records and are suspects in a series of recent robberies in Greensboro, High Point and Burlington, police said.

The chase was risky and didn't end exactly as police would have wanted. A scenario where fleeing suspects are firing across city streets at a busy time of day creates terrible potential for greater harm. Officers appear to have put themselves in a very hazardous position. Police should conduct a full and objective evaluation to determine whether they did everything possible to minimize the risk to themselves and the public.

At the same time, it was important to apprehend obviously armed, dangerous and desperate men. Police surely would not have been satisfied to let them get away.

The reality of police work is that they don't catch everyone. But it's a big relief that police placed into custody a suspect in the Brink's murder and stopped an alleged crime spree by Majors and Patterson. Well done.