Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Ken McCall: As bank robberies add up, prevention suggestions pour in

YOU'VE GOT TO FEEL sorry for those folks down at 3225 W. Sahara Ave.

After less than a month's respite, the beleaguered First Interstate Bank branch was held up again Thursday.

That makes four robberies this year and five in the last six months.

To make matters worse, the robber held up the same teller interviewed for this column on March 15. The 24-year-old robbery veteran has now experienced seven stickups in the 15 months she's worked at the branch and has dealt directly with a robber four times.

What a way to make a living.

This time, the robber is described as a black man who wore a ski mask and "other disguises." The man came in at 9:42 a.m., said FBI Special Agent Debbie Calhoun, vaulted the counter, grabbed the usual "undisclosed amount of cash," and fled in seconds.

For those keeping score, that robbery, together with another later the same day, brings the county's bank heist count to 45 this year. During the same period last year -- when bank robberies increased 44 percent -- we'd had 18.

Looks like we're on an Olympic pace.

The question is, do we have to be?

In the March column, witness Dave Rutherford questioned why, with all of today's technology, these things can still happen.

Then, two people called up in response to the column saying they knew of a foolproof way to stop bank holdups.

The solution they described is a bullet-resistant glass entryway with double interlocking doors on both ends and a metal detector inside.

Only one person can enter the chamber at a time, and if they are cleared by the metal detector, a clerk inside the bank will buzz open the inside door. If not, they stay put.

The beauty of the entryways is that any robber also has to go out through the same device and can be easily trapped.

Marion Giannini, a retired Las Vegas engineer, said she and her husband ran into the devices last year while traveling in France and Italy.

Terrence Downey, an inventor and pit boss at Arizona Charlie's, said he'd designed similar units that were portable. The Downey Bank Vault System, he said, could be delivered on a trailer and "buckled right up to the front door."

Downey was discouraged, however, because he hadn't been able to raise any interest among the local banks, including First Interstate.

"They just don't seem to be interested in stopping bank robberies," he said.

Back in Philadelphia, however, one bank got tired of a rash of armed takeover-style robberies that were terrorizing customers and employees.

Things came to a head for the Mellon Bank Corp. in 1993 when four robbers with sawed-off shotguns tried to take over a bank. A guard on a platform opened fire, hitting one robber and causing the others to flee.

While the robbery was averted, the bank had to face the fact that gunfire in a retail operation is not a good thing.

So Mellon began looking at solutions, said the bank's security director, Michael Foyle, and heard about the metal-detection device being used in Europe and Puerto Rico.

"In Europe," Foyle said, "they use this concept in thousands of places. It's been around for 10 years."

Mellon has since installed 12 in Philadelphia and has two in the works in Pittsburgh.

Since their installation, only one bank has been successfully robbed, and that, Foyle said, was because a teller didn't really understand the device.

On the other hand, he said, the banks have caught two bandits in the units and have scared off three others.

Surveys, he said, show 90 percent acceptance among customers.

"We're committed to the concept."

Back on the home front, the director of security for Wells Fargo, which took control of First Interstate on April 1, says his bank is "always willing to look at new devices."

In fact, said Bill Wipprecht, the bank has installed four of the units at "high-risk, high-robbery" branches in Los Angeles.

"Our experience is that, yeah, it's great at deterring crime," he said.

"The negative side of it is that they really slow customer access, because virtually all of us who go into a bank have some kind of metal on us.

"So far we've found limited customer acceptance."

Maybe they haven't had as many armed takeovers in Los Angeles. Or maybe everybody's used to them.

Wipprecht, who's coming to town next week to take a look around, said it's too early to say whether any of these "man-traps" will be showing up in Las Vegas.

But I'll bet I know some tellers down on West Sahara who would just love to capture some bandits in one of these things.

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