An investigator places numbers at the scene of a dented van — motor still running, lights on — allegedly involved in a robbery at the Bank of America branch on Broad Street yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PROVIDENCE — One suspect is dead — a suicide — and a second suspect is under arrest after a bank robbery yesterday morning and two confrontations between the alleged robbers and their pursuers in South Providence, the police said.

Tracked down at gunpoint in the backyard of a house at 270 Prairie Ave., South Providence, one suspect acted or said something to indicate that he was going to kill himself, according to Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy.

With his gun trained on the suspect, Kennedy said, Detective David Moscarelli yelled, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” But then the man put the barrel of his handgun into his mouth and fired once, Kennedy related. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

One or both alleged robbers fired a total of four to five shots at police officers but the officers did not return fire, according to the police. Both suspects are known to the police, are males in their 20s or 30s and are thought to be city residents, Kennedy said, but their identities were withheld pending verification.

The second suspect was arrested, Kennedy said, after officers followed a trail of cash to a house at 388 Public St. The house was occupied by one or more people besides the suspect, but officers could not get in for several minutes although they repeatedly banged on the door and shouted demands to be admitted, he said.

They finally gained entry — a relative of the house’s co-owner said they kicked in the door — and arrested the male suspect. A woman who lives there was also taken in for questioning.

According to Kennedy’s account, the episode began at 11:15 a.m., when two men carrying handguns robbed a branch office of Bank of America at 1473 Broad St., in Washington Park, of an undetermined sum. The ensuing events played out in intermittently heavy rain.

A motorist flagged down Patrolman George Duarte on Prairie Avenue and said, “That van with two black guys just robbed the bank on Broad Street.” Duarte broadcast a description of a greenish silver minivan, and Patrolwoman Amy Bibeault spotted it as it approached Potters and Prairie avenues. Bibeault followed the vehicle to 277 Prairie, where it pulled into the driveway.

The minivan driver and Bibeault got out of their vehicles virtually simultaneously and the driver fired two shots toward the officer. One bullet hit the windshield of her cruiser and the second the left front tire. Bibeault took cover at the side of the house but did not shoot back.

Both occupants of the minivan then fled through backyards to Chester Street, where Sgt. Peter Costello, driving a cruiser, encountered one of them. That suspect allegedly fired two or three shots at Costello, but all the shots missed.

The suspect ran into a backyard, where he was followed and then confronted by Moscarelli, and killed himself.

Officers recovered some of the loot and the dead suspect’s handgun, but as of 6 p.m. had not recovered the second handgun.

ABC 6 News broadcast an erroneous report that two officers had been shot, prompting officers’ worried family members to begin calling police stations and their loved ones. In turn, that prompted the Police Department to notify the news media that no officers had been shot and to urge department members to let their families know they were OK.

“No officers discharged their weapons,” Kennedy said. “They showed incredible restraint. They were very courageous and followed their training.”

“Thank God” none of them were hurt, he added. Nobody was hurt at the bank, either.

The department will have members who are trained as crisis counselors speak to the officers involved in the incident — at least one was said to be “shaken up” by the experience — to ensure that they are fit to return to duty, the deputy chief said.

The police blocked off large sections of Prairie and Chester and part of Bogman Street and tramped through numerous backyards and into at least several houses in order to piece together the chain of events. Detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Identification had the minivan and Bibeault’s cruiser taken away on a flatbed for closer examination.

The investigation left Morayma Torado, 36, a resident and co-owner of 388 Public St., waiting for hours near her house, unable to go home because the police would not let her. Also waiting nearby was a miffed Jeanne Ferguson, 29, of Woonsocket, who said it was her mother, Karen Drew, 51, who was taken away in handcuffs from 388 Public for questioning. Ferguson said officers apparently blamed her mother, who she said was ailing, for not being quick enough to answer the door when they were looking for the second suspect.

“If they were playing cops and robbers, I had nothing to do with it,” Torado said with a groan. She said the police told her that they were waiting for a search warrant to inspect her house and that she could not go in until they were through. Torado arrived home at about 1 p.m. and was still in a car at 6 p.m., waiting to be allowed in.

“I’m pregnant and I’m tired and I come home to this,” Torado complained. “I’m an innocent bystander, standing by.”

Ferguson said she was on her cell phone, talking to her mother, as the police were at the door.

“She couldn’t get to the door fast enough” to satisfy them, Ferguson said, because she is heavily medicated due to a liver condition.

Ferguson said she rushed up to the police, who were moving her mother to a cruiser, and that one or more officers briefly pointed guns at her outside the house.

“I said you can’t take my mom; she’s sick,” but they disregarded her protest, she said.

Drew lives at 388 Public and her niece, Torado, who is a certified nursing assistant, is her caregiver, according to Ferguson and Torado. Ferguson said a man who she knows only as Anthony also lives in the two-story single-family house and is the man who was arrested as a robbery suspect.

gsmith@projo.com