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MANSFIELD — Police shot and killed an alleged bank robber on Thursday afternoon following a car chase and a nearly 20-minute standoff near a busy day care center on School Street.

Police Chief Arthur O’Neill said his officers shot the alleged robber — who was not identified by name but was described as a young man in his early 20s — after he refused to obey police commands during the standoff and “confronted police in a threatening manner.”

Eyewitnesses told The Sun Chronicle the young man acted erratically throughout the standoff, darting back and forth behind his vehicle. He also ignored multiple warning shots police fired into the ground, as well as their shouted commands, they said.

“He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world,” said one witness, who lives only a few houses away from 155 School St., where the standoff took place, and watched the incident unfold from her front steps.

A second witness said police shot the alleged criminal after he reached into his pocket as if he was about to pull out a weapon. Both witnesses declined to give their names. The police chief did not identify the two alleged robbers, but said they “looked familiar” to Mansfield detectives. O’Neill said he did not know whether the alleged robber was actually armed during the standoff.

The deadly and dramatic events began shortly before 5 p.m., when police were notified that an armed robbery was under way at the North Easton Savings Bank at 71 Copeland Drive, O’Neill said. An unspecified amount of money was stolen, but it was later recovered by police.

When officers arrived at the bank, the alleged robber and an accomplice, who was also said to be a male in his early 20s, fled in a red Ford Explorer down Copeland Drive and toward Route 140.

Police chased the Explorer for about three-quarters of a mile and finally stopped it at the intersection of School and Spring streets, just before the state highway.

The second alleged robber, who was driving, stayed in the vehicle during the standoff and was unharmed, according to both police and witnesses. He was later arrested.

But the other young man jumped out of the car and began to move back and forth behind the Explorer. Witnesses said the five police officers on the scene repeatedly yelled: “Get down! Don’t do it!” But the man refused to follow their orders, and was eventually shot dead.

“They gave him plenty of time and opportunity” to yield, the second witness said, “and if he’d acted like his friend in the car, he’d be alive now.”

Although the incident is still being investigated, O’Neill said that it appears the officers involved “acted properly and with great restraint.” The two witnesses also praised the officers as “very professional,” and said they did nothing wrong.

In his 34 years on the force, O’Neill said, he couldn’t recall a previous episode when a Mansfield police officer had been forced to shoot a suspect. He did not identify which officer fired the fatal shot.

After the shooting, police from Mansfield, Norton, Foxboro, Attleboro and the state police rushed to the area from all directions. At one point there were an estimated 18 police vehicles at the scene, as well as a fire truck and an ambulance. More than a dozen bullet casings littered the scene. The dead man lay covered by a gray blanket, with his legs on the lawn of 155 School St. and his torso on the sidewalk, for nearly four hours after the shooting while crime scene investigators did their work. The body was eventually taken away in a medical examiner’s truck around 9 p.m.

Witness said the second alleged robber was examined in the ambulance before he was arrested.

The Barnyard School of Mansfield, located diagonally across the street from the scene, was locked up during and after the standoff, O’Neill said. The children remained huddled inside the child care facility until nearly 6 p.m., when their parents came to get them.

The North Easton Savings Bank targeted in the robbery was closed after the robbery, although employees remained inside. A bank manager declined to comment on the incident.

The shooting also snarled traffic throughout downtown Mansfield during the evening rush hour. Police closed School Street while they conducted their investigation, which forced all drivers heading for the center of town to use Route 106.

Neighbors who live near the scene of the incident said it was unnerving. Ed and Erica Reynolds, who live on nearby Cobbler Road, said there have been a string of robberies in the area over the past two weeks.

TED NESI covers Mansfield for The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at tnesi@thesunchronicle.com or 508-236-0333.