Hold up! What's behind the rash of robberies?

Mark Potter Correspondent • E-mail

MIAMI - A boom in bank robberies, many of them fueled by criminals in search of money for drugs, is alarming law-enforcement officials across the nation.

After declining a couple of years ago, robberies in the U.S. are on the rise again, according to the FBI, and two recent violent cases prove just how dangerous those crimes can be.

In Bessemer, Ala., a bank robbery in mid-May erupted in gunfire, leaving two tellers dead and two injured. A week later, in Chicago, three armed robbers stormed another bank, killing one teller, and injuring a customer and a security guard.

"These poor tellers, and these people who are employees of the bank, they're really risking their lives out there," says Ray Velboom, a retired supervisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. 

Velboom led the police task force that captured the so-called Band-Aid Bandit last year. Authorities said he was responsible for 39 bank robberies in Florida, and two attempts. The prolific robber earned his nickname by wearing a bandage on his face to cover a mole. Some of the Band-Aid Bandit's victims testified that while he didn't hurt anyone physically, he terrified people when he, and sometimes an accomplice, pointed a gun at them and forced some onto the floor.

Recounting their testimony, Velboom says the overwhelming fear was, "I thought I was gonna die."

Some regions hard-hit
FBI statistics show bank robberies rose nearly 4 percent in 2006 to 6,985, the equivalent of one heist every hour and 15 minutes. That compares with 6,748 in 2005. Authorities said this year's numbers appear to be climbing even higher, with some areas hit particularly hard.

"There's been pockets; there's certain cities like Detroit, Chicago, Dallas and Boston," says FBI Assistant Director Kenneth Kaiser.

In the Tampa, Fla., area, Hillsborough County had 17 bank robberies last year; this year, it already has had nearly 50 percent more. 

Maj. Harold Winsett, who heads the Criminal Investigations Division of the county sheriff's office, says he worries that with the higher number of robberies, the chances of someone getting hurt also increases.

"They become more brazen, the tendency to become more violent is there, because they get cocky, they get confident in what they're doing," Winsett says. "When someone gets captured or confronted in a bank, that scenario turns violent very quickly."

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