The reopening of Community First Credit Union branch in Jacksonville, Fla., Monday went as well as could be expected. Just three days ago, it was the scene of a tense two-hour hostage standoff with a gunman who threatened the lives of seven employees and six members.
“We are very pleased, obviously, to be up and running again,” Community First President/CEO John Hirabayashi, said in an interview with CU Times about three hours after the branch reopened. “We had three of the [eight] branch employees who came back to work there and another employee opted to go to another branch.”
The remaining employees are expected to return to work later in the week.
Hirabayashi and several other executives arrived at the branch at 7:30 a.m. to welcome employees back and to provide them with any support.
Shortly after the branch reopened, a steady stream of cars rolled up to the drive-thru stations and members were standing in the teller line or sitting at a desk talking to member service reps.
“It was business as usual,” Hirabayashi said. “The sentiment I’m hearing from staff is that we had an incident where a crazy person with a gun came into one of our branches and that’s what happened. The employees’ sentiment is that they want to move on.”
More importantly, the probability of that type of incident happening again is very low, he noted.
The suspect, Nicholas Daquan Humphrey, 23, of Tampa, Fla., is facing charges of 13 counts of kidnapping, in addition to the charge of armed robbery and theft of an auto he used to drive to the branch.
He walked into the branch at 9:06 a.m. There were eight employees in the branch, but the branch manager slipped out and immediately called 911. Of the remaining seven employees still in the branch, one employee managed to hide unbeknown to the gun-wielding Humphrey, who shot a bullet into the lobby ceiling while he demanded money.
He ordered the six employees and six members into a back room.
The manager’s emergency call enabled police to arrive at the scene within five minutes and quickly surround the branch.
Hirabayashi got word of the robbery during an offsite meeting when he received a text from his assistant. He left the meeting and drove to the branch. Other executives arrived at the branch as well to assist police.
“She [the branch manager] did an amazing job,” Hirabayashi said. “I was there when she was sharing information with law enforcement and gave them amazing, accurate descriptions of the employees and what they were wearing so that as the SWAT team was looking into our live feed from the branch, they knew who was in the branch and could identify the various people.”
Hirabayashi declined to identify the branch manager out of privacy concerns.
As the hostage standoff continued, however, conditions in the branch became more intense and stressed as Humphrey began to threaten to kill the hostages multiple times and placed his gun to the back of hostages’ heads, according to police.
Because those violent threats escalated, the SWAT command staff determined that at the next opportunity they would storm the branch to rescue the hostages.
That opportunity came when the person hiding fled the branch, which distracted Humphrey. At that point, the SWAT team stormed the branch and placed themselves between the hostages and Humphrey. The 13 hostages were escorted out of the branch and Humphrey was taken into custody without a shot being fired.
Hirabayashi was very thankful that the incident ended safely and praised the work of police and the SWAT team for rescuing the hostages and arresting the suspect.
Hirabayashi noted, however, there was a lot of misinformation that was communicated following the incident.
“When the sheriff was doing his debriefing he inadvertently provided the name of one of our employees as the suspect, but immediately corrected that,” Hirabayashi said. “So you can imagine people hearing that sound bite, it started a little mini wave, but it was quashed within an hour after it happened.”
The Jacksonville sheriff, Mike Williams, also apologized for the error and apologized to the employee and his family.
On Sunday, News4Jax, a local television news station, reported that Humphrey’s mother, Betty Humphrey-Harris, apologized to the victims. She said she unsuccessfully tried to get her son to see a physician because she believed he was suffering from a mental illness, according to the news report.
“They [the hostages] have my complete sympathy and apologies,” she told News4Jax. “On behalf of my son, whom I would like for them to remember, that mental illness is a disease.”
