Bank heists continue to rise in valley

Keith Paul

Monday, Jan. 21, 2002 | 9:38 a.m.

While bank robbers are sometimes portrayed in movies as calculating characters or dubbed with colorful names, reality likely translates into the robber being a desperate person trying to feed an addiction. And in Las Vegas last year the number of desperate robbers increased for the fourth straight year.

"The reality is, there is nothing very glamorous about bank robberies," said Supervisory Special Agent Tracy Reinhold, head of the violent crime squad for the FBI's Las Vegas office. "I don't find anything at all intriguing about bank robberies. It's not a very sophisticated crime."

Planning often isn't thought out. Many times the robbery consists of a suspect walking into the bank, showing a note or making a threat of having a gun.

Last year in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, 181 banks were robbed, up from 2000's then-record 161 bank robberies. This year got off to a fast start, with 13 bank robberies in the first 15 days.

Nationally the number of bank robberies decreased from 1996, when 8,046 heists were reported, to 1999, when there were only 6,599. That trend ended in 2000, when 7,127 robberies were reported in the United States and U.S. territories, according to FBI reports. Last year's national bank robbery totals were not available.

Reinhold said the rise in population in the Las Vegas Valley likely contributed to the increase in bank robberies here.

One serial robber can create a rise in the number of bank heists. Last year one man is accused of robbing 32 banks in Las Vegas, Southern California and Utah, Reinhold said. He was later caught and charged.

"Many times we find they (the bank robbers) have a drug or alcohol dependency and they become desperate for money," he said.

Reinhold said most of the Las Vegas area's robberies included the use of a gun or the threat of a gun.

"It's a very violent crime and the folk who are (in the bank) really are innocent victims," Reinhold said. "If a robber says he has a weapon, it's not really for the tellers to decide if there is one or not."

Last year several tellers and customers were roughed up during robberies, including a few occasions when someone was pistol-whipped, he said.

Nationwide in 2000 there were 412 acts of violence during bank robberies, burglaries and larcenies, including 129 instances when a gun was fired, two explosions and 261 assaults.

There were 23 people killed during bank heists nationwide in 2000, including one customer, one employee, one guard, one other person and 19 robbers, according to FBI statistics.

A total of 166 people sustained non-fatal injuries during the incidents.

No one in Las Vegas was killed during a bank robbery last year; however this year a bank robber killed himself on Jan. 8 while fleeing from Metro Police after a holdup.

Banks have been adding more and more deterrents, such as better surveillance cameras, dye packs hidden inside money that explode after the robber leaves the bank and guards to help thwart robberies.

Banks also train employees how to be good witnesses to help catch robbers when holdups occur, said John Hall, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association based in Washington.

"They are taught not to talk to each other after a robbery so they don't cloud each other's memory," Hall said. "Teller aren't expected to catch criminals, but they are expected to help law enforcement catch (robbers)."

Hall said banks do everything possible to prevent robberies, but banking officials know since they deal in money, robbers are going to attempt to make off with the cash.

"As long as robbers mistakenly feel that they can get away with robbing a bank, we will continue to have robberies and they will also continue to get caught," he said.

Reinhold said about 50 percent of the Las Vegas-area robberies were solved, which he said was good for an area with 1.4 million people.

"We target the serial robbers, because they are likely to be the most violent," he said. "The reality is that robbers hit one place and then move on to another area."

The average amount of loot robbers made off with during heists in 2000 was hardly enough to retire on -- $4,437 per robbery, according to the FBI's Uniform Criminal Reports.