The City of Waycross will be featured on the Discovery Channel tonight (Wednesday, July 15) in the premiere episode of its Investigation Discovery series, “Body Cam.”
The show, titled “Mission Critical,” airs at 9 p.m. It details the work of the Waycross Police Department during a nearly four-year-old bank robbery in the city that evolved into a hostage situation.
WPD Police Chief Tommy Cox said he was contacted in June, 2025 about obtaining information and body cam footage from the incident.
“They got the body cam footage and did some interviews with the officers involved last year,” Chief Cox said.
The chief said when the process began, the episode had been planned for late last season, but it was held over to be the opener for the 11th season of the series.
The show will cover the events which took place September 9, 2022, when the Ameris Bank at 2110 Memorial Drive was robbed by Steven Lamar Hamm and Matthew McCloskey.
Waycross Police Officers responded to the bank’s location at approximately 9:30 a.m., after a call was received about an armed robbery. Information received said a masked subject was making threats and demanding money at Ameris Bank.
The subject (Mc-Closkey) fled the bank with money and climbed into a waiting vehicle driven by Hamm, authorities said. The vehicle fled north on Memorial Drive.
Hamm, a Waycross native who was 45 at the time, was arrested shortly after fleeing the scene McCloskey, 33 from Brooklyn, N.Y. at the time, barricaded himself in a local hotel room. Mc-Closkey had taken a woman, his girlfriend, hostage at knifepoint.
Officers attempted to negotiate with the assailant, but finally forced their way into the room and disarmed McCloskey.
Hamm was charged with Armed Robbery. Mc-Closkey was charged with Possessions of Firearm or Knife During Commission of or Attempt to Commit Certain Crime, Kidnapping and Armed Robbery, and five counts of Aggravated Assault against Law Enforcement Officer When Engaged on Official Duty.
McCloskey was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison in 2024. He had two prior felony convictions for bank robbery in 2013 and 2016.
Waycross Police Department Major Danny Hampton said after the men were apprehended he only remembered one other bank robbery in his 28 years on the force.
