CLERMONT — He calls himself an adrenaline junkie.
But when Josh Reeves chased down a suspect in a bank robbery Tuesday, some deemed him a hero.
“I did it just because,” the 21-year-old Clermont man said. “I always wanted to be a cop.”
Reeves told deputies that about 3 p.m., he was sitting in the drive-through lane at the Bank of America on State Road 50 and County Road 455 and saw a man inside trying to rob tellers. When the man left in a Ford Explorer, Reeves followed him and called deputies.
Speeding down S.R. 50, Reeves chased the man into the Greater Hills subdivision, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
“We were doing 80, 90 mph,” Reeves said. “Then there was a school bus with kids getting off.”
Reeves said he began honking his horn and grabbed the .40-caliber handgun in his pickup. Unsure of what to do, he kept driving after the man until the sport utility vehicle stopped in front of sheriff’s patrol cars, who met them there.
Deputies arrested Larry Wayne Mobley, 36, and charged him with fleeing and attempting to elude law-enforcement officers and armed robbery. He was being held Tuesday night in the Lake County Jail on $55,000 bail.
An 18-year-old man driving the SUV and two juvenile passengers were questioned at the sheriff’s substation in Clermont on Tuesday evening. Mobley had threatened to stab the driver after the robbery, authorities said.
Mobley told deputies that he met the 18-year-old several days ago in the woods near Bithlo, detectives said. He asked the man Tuesday to drive him to the Wal-Mart in Ocoee — where Mobley said he stole a black T-shirt and gloves — and then to the Bank of America. Mobley said he told them “he wanted to meet friends who’d give him money,” Detective Glenn Connelly said.
Deputies are grateful for Reeves’ help in catching Mobley, Connelly said, but added that he “wouldn’t recommend” people chase suspected criminals.
But Reeves said he never feared for his safety.
“I guess it was my five minutes of fame. . . . I never put my life before anyone else’s,” he said.
“But people who do stuff wrong, they need to be punished.”
