A DNA match pulled from a bicycle abandoned at a Richmond bank robbery scene has led to the arrest of a 31-year-old man nearly four months after a gunman pointed a firearm at a woman, fired a round into the air, and forced her to the ground outside a Hilltop-area Bank of America. Richmond police say Alfonso Del Rio, who lives in Richmond, was booked into Richmond police jail on suspicion of robbery and for allegedly having a gun while committing a felony, with bail set at $200,000.
The robbery happened on May 20 at the Bank of America branch on Hilltop Mall Road, according to the Richmond Police Department. Investigators say the suspect demanded the woman's purse, pointed a firearm at her, and fired a shot into the air before forcing her to the ground. She suffered minor injuries in the encounter, per KRON4. The suspect then fled the scene on a bicycle, which he left behind at the bank — a decision that would ultimately help unravel the case.
Detectives located the abandoned bicycle at the scene and submitted DNA evidence collected from it for analysis, the department said. That sample was eventually run through California's DNA-matching infrastructure, which includes the state Department of Justice's CAL-DNA Data Bank — a repository of more than 900,000 searchable offender profiles linked through the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, according to the California Department of Justice. The analysis returned a positive match identifying Del Rio as a suspect, police said.
SWAT Team Makes the Arrest in Parchester Village
Richmond police also released surveillance video of the incident as investigators worked to build their case. On Tuesday, Richmond Police SWAT officers and detectives responded to the 600 block of Phanor Drive, a stretch of the Parchester Village neighborhood near Giant Highway, according to the City of Richmond. There, officers arrested Del Rio without further incident described in the department's release.
The bank itself has a long history at that address — the Rollingwood Branch and drive-thru ATM center at 3100 Hilltop Mall Road has served Contra Costa County customers since it opened in 1976, according to Bank of America branch records. It's not the first time violence has struck the location: in January 1996, two armed men ambushed a customer at the same teller machine, according to a report from SFGATE.
What Del Rio Is Facing in Court
Del Rio was booked for suspicion of robbery and charged with having a gun while committing a felony, but the potential penalties stretch well beyond a standard robbery case. Robbery under California Penal Code § 211 is classified as both a serious and violent felony that also counts as a strike under the state's Three Strikes Law, carrying a base prison term of two, three, or five years for second-degree robbery, according to the Eisner Gorin LLP legal resource cited in court-procedure background materials.
The allegation that Del Rio fired a round into the air adds a much steeper layer of exposure. Under California's so-called “10-20-life” sentencing law, Penal Code § 12022.53, intentionally discharging a firearm during a felony carries a mandatory, consecutive 20-year prison enhancement on top of whatever base sentence a robbery conviction brings, according to the Shouse Law Group. With bail set at $200,000, Del Rio must post bond or remain in custody while the case moves toward arraignment and preliminary hearings, per standard California criminal procedure outlined by the Law Office of Paul Tyler.
A City Grappling With Rising Robbery Numbers
The case lands against a backdrop of climbing robbery figures across Richmond. Reported robberies in the city rose from 243 in 2021 to 334 in 2024, according to Richmond Police Department annual crime data cited by Contra Costa News. Police Chief Bisa French has said the department's budgeted strength stood at 146 officers with 20 active vacancies as of early 2025 — down from a historical staffing level near 200 officers — a gap that has strained specialized units and daily patrol coverage, per that same reporting.
More recent monthly figures show some fluctuation: Richmond logged 16 robberies citywide in April 2026, a 30 percent drop from the 23 robberies recorded the month before, according to city crime reports. Whether Del Rio has a prior criminal record that would explain why his profile was already searchable in the state's DNA database, when his formal arraignment will take place in Contra Costa County Superior Court, and whether the firearm used in the May robbery has ever been recovered all remain unanswered questions in the case.
