CRESTVIEW, Fla., Nov. 5, 2024—A Pensacola man was arrested yesterday for robbing a Crestview bank on Friday.

James Keith Johnson, 66, from Pensacola, was arrested and charged with robbery without a fire arm.

Just before 4:30 p.m. Friday, the Crestview Police Department responded to Regions Bank on South Ferdon Boulevard in reference to a bank robbery.

Johnson, wearing a fluorescent yellow safety vest and a large straw hat with a face mask, kept his hand in his pocket claiming to have a weapon and demanded money from the bank tellers, according to a police department Facebook post.

When officers arrived on scene, he had already fled the area on foot, running toward an adjacent shopping plaza. Still wearing the highly visible safety vest, Johnson was seen by witnesses getting into a white SUV and then driving erratically through the parking lot.

Johnson is a Federal Bureau of Prisons parolee after being arrested for two separate Florida bank robberies in March of 1995. He was caught after laundering the bank’s dye-stained bills through a casino token machine in Mississippi and was convicted in Florida in November 1995, receiving a 327-month prison sentence.

Immediately following the robbery, he was seen at a Native American event in the Niceville area. Johnson, who took on the name Thunder Eagle Ghost Dancer after his 1995 bank robbery conviction, stayed at the event for a short time, leaving before officers arrived.

Johnson was arrested at his home in Pensacola by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and is being held without bond in the Okaloosa County Jail.

The Crestview Police Department credits the speedy apprehension of Johnson to the observant citizens who called with leads, the meticulous work of the department’s police officers and investigators, and law enforcement partnerships with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office who assisted in locating and arresting Johnson swiftly.

Crestview Police Department release