Stick 'em up
Bonnie & Clyde redux? Bank robberies are Houston's hottest trend
Here's one thing the movies have all wrong: Bank robbers who are dashing cads (Clive Owen, Warren Beatty, George Clooney— OK he robbed a casino vault) that bilk the bank by hatching elaborate and cunning schemes.
No, bank robberies these days are much simpler and much more common. Walk in, tell the teller to give you all the money in her drawer, walk away. They only make the news when someone is shot or the suspect does something unusual: Talking on her cell phone the entire time, leaving on a bicycle, taking a taxi or saying thank you to the teller.
In August, Houston banks were robbed a one-month-record record 25 times, a number that's already been surpassed in the first half of September, according to the FBI, including three in one day.
At this rate, Houston is poised to break the 2002 record of 174 bank robberies, with 110 already on the books.
The next time you sidle up to a bar and ask your neighbor what he does, don't be surprised if he responds like this:
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Photo by Leonid Furmansky
