Mira Mesa

A high-speed chase up Interstates 805 and 5 ended at noon Friday when two suspected bank robbers leapt from a moving truck, fled across the freeway and were arrested amid snarled traffic after a San Diego police officer shot one of the men in the back.

William Louis Meshke, 30, remained in serious condition at UC San Diego Medical Center Friday night with a single bullet wound in his upper back. Police said Meshke and Benjamin Anthony Montez, 24, were being held on suspicion of robbery.

The men are suspected of having robbed a Mira Mesa bank of $1,300 shortly before noon Friday. FBI agents and San Diego police are also considering whether Meshke might be the so-called ponytail bandit believed to have robbed 12 San Diego County banks since Jan. 20.

“All I can tell you is his physical descripton and the clothing he wore are sufficient to place him as a definite suspect,” said FBI spokesman James Bolenbach. Bolenbach said the man with the blond ponytail, believed to be a wig, is 6-foot-2, weighs 165 pounds and always wears sunglasses.

According to San Diego police officers, a man held up a Pacific Coast Savings & Loan Assn. office at 9025 Mira Mesa Blvd. at 11:30 a.m. and fled with another man in a white pickup truck. Alerted by the bank, police began following them almost immediately. The chase led to the northbound lanes of I-805 and then Interstate 5.

Police said the men were throwing things from the truck, which the police eventually forced over to the center divider of I-5 south of the Via de la Valle exit. As the truck suddenly slowed, the two men jumped out and fled into the southbound lanes.

One officer stopped his car and began chasing Meshke, who a police spokesman said turned left as though to face the officer. The officer, Samuel Campbell, fired a single round and struck Meshke in the upper back, according to a statement released by the department.

Another officer arrested Montez nearby, without incident, police said.

San Diego Police Lt. Louis Scanlon said officers found money stained red with dye inside the truck. The dye appeared to have come from a dye pack of the kind commonly inserted by banks to enable people to identify stolen money.

Bolenbach said officers were checking the area near the junction of Interstates 5 and 805 where the articles were thrown from the truck.

The so-called ponytail bandit is believed to have robbed four banks in Carlsbad, four in Clairemont, two in Mira Mesa, one in Oceanside and one in La Jolla.