Kelvin Dennison accused of making off with more than $1,200 after telling staff at Santander bank branch he had a gun

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A man in a wheelchair has been arrested for allegedly stealing $1,212 in a daytime bank robbery, US authorities said on Friday.

Kelvin Dennison, 23, from New York City, was picked up by officers at a hospital two days after he rolled into a Santander bank branch in Queens on Monday afternoon and claimed to be armed, police said.

“Give me all you have,” he told a teller, according to court papers. “I have a gun.”

The teller then passed him the cash before he pushed himself out of the bank and then fled down the street in his wheelchair, police said. Authorities released an image of a man in a wheelchair leaving the bank taken from a store’s surveillance camera.

When Dennison went to a Queens hospital two days later, someone recognised him and called police, prosecutors said. Authorities did not say why Dennison went to the hospital.

When he was questioned by investigators, Dennison told them he was in a wheelchair after being injured in a shooting, a spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney’s office told the New York Times.

Dennison was charged with robbery and is being held on $15,000 bail. Attempts to reach his attorney for comment on Friday were unsuccessful.