The son of Hialeah's former police chief was arrested Wednesday morning, two days after he is accused of robbing a bank, according to detectives.
Rolando A. Bolaños Jr., a former police officer himself, was charged with the strong arm bank robbery of a Bank Atlantic in Hialeah -- a city where he's well known by police, politicians and attorneys.
Police said the former cop walked into the bank with a black baseball cap hanging low over his face, and then he handed the bank teller a note demanding money. He walked out with a stack of cash and rolled away in his black Mercedes Benz.
The married 36-year-old is the son of former Hialeah Police Chief Rolando Bolaños Sr., a man who was famous for single-handedly stopping bank robbers in 1996.
His voluntary arrest comes five years after his last run-in with the law, when the Hialeah police discovered Bolaños failed to disclose a grand theft auto charge when he applied for the department. The officer narrowly escaped misdemeanor charges by surrendering his police certification on Jan. 5, 2004.
A year earlier, the police chief's other son, Daniel Bolaños, resigned from the police department as well. He and his brother were arrested for a 1998 police brutality incident, and Daniel Bolaños later resigned under pressure from Miami-Dade prosecutors, who agreed to drop the two felony official misconduct counts.
After another joint police beating in April 2003, a jury found both brothers violated a man's civil rights when they beat him during an arrest.
Daniel Bolaños' defense attorney at the time, Michael Band, said his client's decision to leave law enforcement took a toll on other family members.
Family members did not say what toll Rolando Bolaños' recent arrest warrant would take on the family.
Daniel Bolaños, who was contacted Wednesday morning, sighed heavily into his phone's receiver as he said he already knew the purpose of the call.
''Right now, I have no comment,'' he said slowly, without changing a single tone in his voice.
He asked to be called later in the day.
According to Hialeah police spokesman Detective Carl Zogby, Bolaños used his own car to drive to and from the bank at 7775 W. 33rd Ave., and police tracked him down by identifying his license plate.
Wednesday morning, detectives got in contact with Bolaños Jr. or someone close to him and arranged an arrest by 10:50 a.m.
However, Hialeah Councilman José Caragol said anyone who would have seen Bolaños would have recognized him.
''He's easy to find. Everyone knows who and where his wife and kids are,'' he said.
Caragol, who served as the city's spokesman for more than two decades while Bolaños' father was police chief, said the chief took great care in raising his kids -- and that the bank robbery charge was a shame.
The former police chief once had an impeccable record with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and during the violent and chaotic 1980s, he ran Hialeah's police department with an iron fist.
Years later, Bolaños Sr. admitted to lying under oath when he told prosecutors he did not know about his son's 1989 arrest for auto theft, which later caused his son trouble when he was accused of lying on his application to the police department.
At the time, the chief told a prosecutor, ``If it came down to saving my son or telling the truth, I would have been happy to lie.''
Bolaños Sr. was Hialeah's first Hispanic police chief, and he briefly gained fame for arresting three bank robbers who happened to rob a Hialeah bank just as he drove by it.
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