Published in Wisconsin Banker
June 2010
Don’t Overlook the Details in a Robbery Situation
Despite increase in takeovers, banks are keeping their bank staff and customers safe
By Becky Nelson
Wisconsin bank robberies aren’t increasing in number, but they are becoming more violent.
Of the 95 bank and credit union robberies in 2009, 19 were takeover-style crimes and two ended in shootouts with suspect fatalities, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics. To banks’ credit, no employees or customers were seriously injured.
When it comes to preventing or solving these crimes, sometimes the devil truly is in the details.
Efforts such as keeping windows free of obstructions and greeting each customer when they walk in can help deter would-be robbers. A visit from a bank executive and providing immediate counseling services can help restore employee trust should the unthinkable occur. And having tellers call 911 them-selves and putting a GPS tracking device in the stolen money can help catch criminals.
“Any time you are robbed, the person has evaluated your branch in advance and has found it to be weak,” said Barry Thompson of New York-based Thompson Consulting Group LLC and a past speaker at the annual WBA Security & Financial Crimes Conference.
Preventative Measures
Ben Hruz, bank robbery coordinator for the FBI in Milwaukee, collects data from each robbery to track numbers and trends and to look for similarities. The agency also helps local law enforcement with investigations, particularly in violent or serial crimes.
So far in 2010, there have been 33 bank robberies in the state, and it’s common to see more of them in the fall, he said.
“We try to reiterate with banks that they follow the security procedures they’ve been trained on and not become complacent,” Hruz said. “Things like opening procedures and taking different routes home from the bank. Making sure that tellers make eye contact with people that enter the bank. Asking them to remove sunglasses and hats – that can have an effect on stopping less violent offenders.”
WBA, along with the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Milwaukee Police Department, kicked off a No Hats, No Hoods, No Sunglasses, No Guns program last July to coincide with the opening of the movie “Public Enemies.” (See www.wisbank.com/nohatsnohoods for free
signage and information.)
Debbie Cottone, branch manager and security officer for Milwaukee-based Layton State Bank, said that the policy helped her bank avoid a robbery in late April.
A man came into the bank’s Forest Home branch at 4:30 on a Monday afternoon, wearing a stocking cap, hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses,
Cottone said. A teller loudly asked the man to remove his sunglasses as he approached, asking for change for a $5 bill. When he refused, the teller repeated the request. When the man began to remove his hands from his pockets, the teller noticed he had on blue latex gloves. When a security guard approached him, he left without incident.
A man with the same appearance – wearing the same blue gloves – robbed a bank in another community a few days later.
Layton State Bank implemented the policy about a year ago, Cottone said. “At first customers kind of laughed about it, especially regulars. We let them know that this is our policy, and we take it seriously because of the security risk.”
Dean Koepke, security officer at River Valley Bank, Wausau, and a member of the WBA Financial Crimes Committee, encouraged his bank’s senior management to implement such a policy after a national franchise urged citizens to take advantage of their right to carry weapons openly. The policy doesn’t seem to be an issue with customers, he said.
“You cannot be selective,” cautions Thompson. “If you require it of a blue person, you must do the same with a yellow person. Whether it would be a threat or not determines how you enforce the policy.”
As part of his consulting business, Thompson conducts security assessments to help banks prevent problems. By inspecting banks during the day and at night, he looks to see whether an institution is inadvertently making itself a target for crime through inadequate lighting; tall plantings that give robbers a place to hide; or a lobby that is not visible to the street, either by design or by having blinds or advertising signage obscuring a robbery from passers-by.
Sometimes just a simple “hello” can help prevent crime, as proven by the FBI’s SafeCatch program in Seattle, a banker training program that
reduced the number of bank robberies by 51 percent in its first decade.
“We can stop a robbery if someone would just speak to a person as they’re looking at the teller line or standing at a check-writing desk. If we’re very friendly, they will probably leave,” Thompson said.
Solvable Crimes
The percentage of takeover-style robberies, in which a suspect displays a weapon and takes control of the bank, has remained around 20 percent for the past few years, up from 5 percent to 10 percent of all robberies previously, the FBI’s Hruz said.
Although more than half (56) of all bank robberies occurred in the five-county Milwaukee metro area, violent incidents occur elsewhere as well. Recent holdups have occurred in the Madison and Eau Claire areas, and one of the fatal shootouts occurred last fall in Sawyer County in rural northern Wisconsin. A suspect was killed after he led police on a chase and shot at them. The other happened on a spring morning in Fox Point, a small Milwaukee-area suburb, when officers pulled over the suspect’s car and he fired at them.
Wisconsin recently had its first case of recovered loot using a GPS-tracking device. When a robber leaves a bank with a GPS device in the money, an alert goes out to police dispatch and to the FBI to help local law enforcement catch him or her within that first critical five to 10 minutes, Hruz explained.
“They’re smaller and less noticeable by offenders,” he said. “They might cost a little bit more than dye packs, but we know they work.”
The best leads are those from victim tellers, citizen witnesses and tips that come in after a case is in the media – which is why it’s important that banks install the best video equipment possible, Hruz said.
Thompson emphasized the importance of having the victim teller call 911 immediately after the robber leaves and the doors are locked. “He or she is immediately giving the best information available directly to the police,” he said. It also helps the teller to regain control over the situation, which can be critical from a psychological perspective.
He recommends that by the next day, the bank CEO or other high-ranking officer should visit the branch that was robbed. “I like to see flowers for the ladies and something for the men, like t-shirts or a dinner – anything to say thank you. It’s not a part of their job,” Thompson said.
Counseling should begin right away, with an agency that has been put in place before a robbery occurs.
To date, 72 percent of Wisconsin’s 2009 robberies have been solved with arrests made. Because robbers often keep committing crimes until they are caught, communication between agencies and jurisdictions is critical. (WBA offers member banks access to a free online database to track robberies and other crimes at www.fincrime.com.)
“We have a good relationship with local law enforcement and the banking community,” Hruz said. “We need bankers aiding us – they are our first responders.”
Nelson is a freelance writer for the Wisconsin Bankers Association.
