"It only takes a minute or two to rob a bank," said Robbie Burroughs, special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Seattle.

Last week a suspected robber used a Colt .45-style pellet gun at the Admiral Wells-Fargo Bank to get immediate attention. He jumped the gate into the teller's area, aimed the gun and demanded money.

Burroughs said the investigation is ongoing. The suspected robber is Douglas Michael Cox, 50, of Burien. His accused getaway driver is Seattle native Kevin V. Palmer, 47. Both let police on a chase across the West Seattle Bridge at mid-morning and headed downtown. Finally, Palmer jumped out of the car at Eighth Avenue and Yesler Way and was captured immediately.

Cox continued driving until surrounded at First Avenue and Spring Street. He brandished what law enforcement thought was a real gun. He refused to surrender and was shot by officers and then taken to Harborview Medical Center.

While residents here find West Seattle's geography cumbersome to drive in and out of, bank robbers don't seem to fear the bridge bottleneck.

"It's a nice idea to think that West Seattle is less of a target for bank robberies than other areas of Seattle but that is not the case," Burroughs said.

"I have witnessed three bank robberies at Wells Fargo," said Harold Chacon, a clerk for nearly 10 years at the Chevron service station across the street from the bank. "I saw all three from the same point of view, looking (east) through the window from my cashier's stand."

Chacon, 40, says "Everybody knows me in the neighborhood." He lives just two blocks from his job, and as for the high gas prices he said with a grin, "I just sell it. I don't buy it."

"It was just before 10:15 a.m., one of those really quiet mornings around Admiral and California when I saw a tall man wearing what I thought was a surgical mask over his face like a bandana, walking slowly out the door of the bank, said Chacon. "He was holding a bag like a baby. It was like a typical Hollywood image of a bank robber. I saw him get into the passenger side of the Jeep Cherokee, and they sped away. The windows were down, and a burst of red smoke went off while they headed north on California Avenue. It must have been the ink from the dye pack the teller put in his bag."

Some reports have not mentioned a mask, but say that Cox had blackened his face. Reports also say Cox wore a woman's wig, but Chacon said he knew immediately the robber was a male.

"I'd be more than happy to pass through a metal detector in my bank," said 'Patrick,' an area resident. "It would be better than having to worry that someone's going to shoot me while I'm standing there in the lobby."

While this was Chacon's third time witnessing a bank robbery, it was Cox's alleged sixth time robbing a bank. He has been convicted of other robberies in Spokane and in Seattle. The Spokane robberies were in 1997 and 1998, when he lived in Colville, 70 miles north of Spokane.

Chacon, meanwhile, is bracing for witnessing his fourth robbery.

"I live in the neighborhood. I got to keep watching."

Steve Shay may be contacted at steves@robinsonnews.com