Lawrence Police made an arrest in connection with the robbery of the Midwest Regional Credit Union at Sixth and Maine streets late Friday.

Police arrested a 36-year-old Lawrence man in a strip mall parking lot in front of Wendy’s on Sixth Street and Kasold Drive around 11:30 p.m. Friday.

Earlier that day, the credit union was robbed just after 11:30 a.m. by what police described as a white male in his 20s with reddish-blond hair. The suspect wore a yellow jacket, a maroon stocking cap with gray band, sunglasses, blue jeans and brown shoes. He showed employees the outline of what could have been a handgun under his jacket, then fled southbound on foot with an undisclosed sum of money.

An unmarked Douglas County Sheriff’s vehicle spotted a man who fit the general description of the suspect driving east on Kansas Highway 10 about 12:15 p.m. and called for assistance to make the stop. Johnson County law enforcement officials assisted the Douglas County deputy and pulled the vehicle over, but after a search determined the driver was not the robber.

In a statement released early Saturday, Lawrence Police said they developed a suspect through the course of their investigation.

The statement went on to say that the suspect was to be booked into the Douglas County Jail on one count of aggravated robbery.

Police have notified the FBI and are directing questions regarding the robbery to the Kansas City field office.

This was the third time the credit union has been robbed since 1999, when 22-year-old Christopher Nemmers held it up as part of a four-bank crime spree in Overland Park and Lawrence. In January 2003, 29-year-old Quentin Wayne Kivitter escaped after an early-morning robbery of the credit union. He was arrested nearly a month later after robbing a bank in Lyon County.

Schools nearby

Midwest Regional Credit Union, 1015 W. Sixth St., was robbed Friday for the third time since 1999. About one hour after the heist, a police officer leads a man thought to be a bank customer out of the building.

Friday’s robbery had the parents of children at two nearby schools concerned about safety. Pinckney School, 810 W. Sixth St., is roughly two blocks east of the credit union. Lawrence Community Nursery School, 645 Ala., is a block south.

At Pinckney, David Kraus picked up his daughter, Alijah, at school for lunch. Just minutes after the robbery, Pinckney students were still on the playground across the street from the credit union.

“You can just look right over there,” Kraus said, pointing at the school’s playground. “You can see kids playing outside. I don’t want my daughter on the playground if someone dangerous is running around.”

Pinckney’s principal, Lesa Frantz, didn’t hear about the robbery until a parent walked into her office to tell her. By that time, the students were already at recess.

“I heard about it, oh, about third-hand,” Frantz said.

It is not Police Department policy, to her knowledge, to notify nearby schools or the Lawrence school district if a violent crime has occurred near a school, Frantz said.

Frantz said had she known earlier, she would have been able to evaluate the situation, possibly keeping the students off the playground.

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“I would hope the procedure would be that we’d be notified,” she said.

Lawrence Police spokesman Sgt. Dan Ward said that the police would have notified Pinckney about the incident had a suspect been in the area. But because the suspect headed south from the crime, away from Pinckney, police notified only the Lawrence Community Nursery School.

The robbery happened as preschoolers at the school were playing outside at the end of their morning class.

Cris Redmond, a parent who was working as a substitute teacher at the school, said she was in the school yard with the children when an officer in an unmarked car pulled up on the street. He told her there had been an armed bank robbery in the area and asked her if she’d seen a man in a yellow jacket and gray hat.

“He said, ‘He’s got a gun, so you might get the children inside,'” Redmond said. “So we shuffled all the children inside.”

Word spread among the confused children that there was a “mean man” outside, so several crowded around the window looking for him, Redmond said.

— Staff writers Jay Senter and Eric Weslander contributed to this report.