BLOOMINGTON - When he headed out to follow a police chase Monday afternoon, Pantagraph Photo Editor David Proeber thought the best images he would get would be squad cars speeding past him. | Photo gallery: Entire chase sequence

Then the suspected bank robber stopped his sport-utility vehicle on the opposite side of the Interstate 55-74 bypass from Proeber's car.

"His eyes met mine," Proeber said. "And the next thing I knew, he leaped over the barricade and took a few steps at the car."

Proeber, traveling in the opposite direction of the chase, thought he would get photos of the chase, then have to turn around to catch up, hopefully in time to get photos as police made an arrest.

Instead, the action unfolded in front of him and, from inside his car, he kept shooting his Nikon digital camera, capturing images of Robert Sylvester exiting his SUV, waving a handgun at police and running across the interstate.

"You can see here where he looked for oncoming traffic, dodged that car and started running toward me," Proeber said, pointing to a photo with a maroon car coming into view. The image was near the end of about 47 frames he photographed of Sylvester within a three-minute span.

Proeber, in a white Mitsubishi sedan marked with the newspaper's logo, was on the right shoulder of the interstate, across from Normal Community West High School. When he saw Sylvester running his way, Proeber feared he would be taken hostage.

"I didn't think he was going to hurt me," Proeber said. "But I did have a real fear of being inserted into a police story."

At that point, Proeber ducked and floored the accelerator. He stopped the car about 150 feet down the shoulder as he heard gun shots.

"I looked up in the rearview mirror as I was braking (the car) and saw police running toward him," Proeber said.

Sylvester was lying on the pavement as Proeber photographed an Illinois State Police trooper and a second, unidentified police officer bending over to handcuff the man.