July 3, 2004
Today's Bank Robber Might Look Like a Neighbor
By WARREN ST. JOHN
The case of J. L. Rountree seemed at first an aberration, something from "News of the Weird." Last August, Mr. Rountree, 91 years old, walked into the First American Bank in Abilene, Tex., and handed the teller a note reading "Robbery."
"You're kidding," the teller said.
"Hurry up," snapped Mr. Rountree, who was unarmed. "Or you'll get hurt."
Mr. Rountree — no sprinter — left with $1,999 and was soon arrested by the local police, who gave him the perfect headline-grabbing nickname: the Grandpa Bandit. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Then in December, Sally Ann Smith, 56 and described by a neighbor as "a wonderful, caring and loving person, and a devoted grandmother," was arrested at her home in Peoria, Ariz., on charges of robbing two banks at gunpoint. Ms. Smith, too, got a nickname: the Grandma Bandit.
Then there were Robert Day, an armed 68-year-old bank robber in Texas, and Brenda Bishop, the Granny Bandit of Macomb County, Mich., who was unarmed; both are now in prison. And on Thursday, the police said, an unarmed 70-year-old man named Gordon Bryant tried to rob the Farmers State Bank in Versailles, Ill. The police said they had found Mr. Bryant outside the bank with a stocking over his head.
While it may be tempting to view these bank-robbing grandparents as evidence of a moral collapse among older Americans, more likely they say something about the changing nature of bank robbery. Once the pursuit of hardened, shoot-'em-up bandits like Bonnie and Clyde, and later of violent street gangs packing 9-millimeter guns, bank robbery has become a kind of everyman's felony.
While about half of bank robberies in the United States are still committed by drug addicts desperate for money and a third by veteran bank thieves, law enforcement officials and criminologists say an increasing number are being pulled off by thieves who have a lot more in common with Willy Loman than Willie Sutton. They are teenagers and senior citizens, stay-at-home parents and established career types — in short, anyone with an acute need for cash. ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/03/national/03ROB.html?hp>
Carl
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