Bank robbing as a career choice

Bank robbers 4, Law enforcement 1.

That is the score in the north country since 2006. Five banks have been robbed. One (alleged) robber has been caught. http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090803/NEWS05/308039957

This is a startling stat if you are like me and thought nobody robs banks anymore – at least not successfully.

Robbing banks is so 1930s. Think tommy guns and black getaway cars with running boards. Bonnie and Clyde. John Dillinger. It was a way to make a living back then. It was also a sure way to make a dying. That had to be one of the big things that historically has taken the shine off bank robbing as a career choice.

Since those days, technology piggybacked the threat of death to thwart would-be thieves. There is that tricky money that explodes and coats you with dye two blocks after you think you are home free with a pile of loot. And there are those expensive high-tech cameras that can capture on video the latest in ski mask fashion worn by the robber while they are robbing.

So what criminals with any sense would choose to do a crime that they had virtually no chance of getting away with in this day and age? I can’t tell you because – in four of the cases we reported in the Times - they all left the north country banks they robbed without leaving a business card. They didn’t shoot anyone. They didn’t get shot. Three of them didn’t even seem to have a getaway car. They ran away and have not been caught.

I don’t get how this can happen. It’s not that I think the bank people or police or anyone but the robbers did anything wrong. It’s not that I think north country banks could have done something to stop the resurgence of bank robbing as a profession here. It’s that I am astonished. Astonished that people are still robbing banks. Astonished that people so far have gotten away with it. Astonished that they have succeeded four times.

It is all so hard to believe. I lived for years in Detroit – a city often cited as a haven for crime – without ever reading in the local papers about anyone robbing a bank. Same deal in Reno, Nev. Same deal in a sprawling metropolis north of Miami, Fla. I had empirical evidence from living in those big cities and would have bet my last dollar that no one robs banks anymore. If you are keeping score, I would have lost.