Published: September 26, 2007 11:08 am   

State police recognize two for apprehending bank robber

By SANDRA K. REABUCK
The Tribune-Democrat

EBENSBURG — Two Cambria County sheriff’s deputies were honored by the state police Wednesday for their quick action in apprehending a bank robber who told a teller he was armed.

Deputies Vince Arcurio and Jake Kehn were presented with the state police’s Outstanding Citizenship Award by Capt. Harvey Cole, commander of Greensburg-based Troop A. It was presented in a brief ceremony at the Ebensburg barracks.

“They put themselves in harm’s way,” Cole said. “The action they took is above and beyond the regular duty.”

The award has been given to only 14 others in Pennsylvania this year, he said.

Sheriff Bob Kolar said, “The two, if it would happen again, they’d do the same thing.”

Arcurio and Kehn took the suspect into custody without incident at a busy Sheetz in Johnstown’s West End and without placing anyone else in danger, the captain said.

The deputies were out serving warrants May 14 and had just left a residence on Chestnut Street in Cambria City when they spotted a truck that matched the description of the bank robber’s vehicle.

The First Summit Bank in East Taylor Township’s Parkhill section had been robbed at 9:30 a.m., shortly before Arcurio and Kehn spotted the truck.

They followed the truck to Sheetz, where the suspect – eventually identified as Dwayne Durnal of Johnstown– pumped gas and then went into the store to pay for it. Meanwhile, the deputies, with their unmarked cruiser, boxed in the truck and waited for him to come out.

When they confronted him and asked him where he’d been, his answer “was the No. 1 flag that something was up, because it wasn’t where we had followed him,” Kehn said.

They said they soon had Durnal handcuffed and, when the city police arrived, an officer found money in a bag in the truck.

Kehn, downplaying the arrest, said, “It was being at the right place at the right time.”

Both deputies said they had not stopped to consider that they might be placing themselves in danger before taking action.

“It’s our job. There’s a chance of that (danger) every day for anybody who wears a uniform,” Arcurio said.

Arcurio has been a deputy for 12 years. Kehn joined the sheriff’s department 2 ½  years ago. Kehn is a part-time officer in Portage Borough.

Earlier this month, Durnal was sentenced to five to 15 years in state prison by Judge Timothy Creany on guilty pleas to theft and terroristic threats in the robbery.