My First Bank Robbery

This is a true story. I have many true stories from my own life which may seem unbelievable, but, believe me, they are true. The one I am about to tell seemed unbelievable to me too!

It was a Monday. Monday's for me at work meant the morning was consumed with sorting through weekend mail, bills, counting and balancing any "special" collections that took place at Masses or special events. Oh, did I mention that I was the Finance Manager at a church? Yes, I was the head honcho "bean counter." But, back to that particular Monday... The money-counters, parishioner volunteers who were rotated every four weeks so that no two people could make a plan for a heist, were sitting in the room next to my office. One of the volunteers brought a pot of hazelnut coffee and delivered a cup to my office.

When the money-counters were finished double-checking and preparing their deposit, two of them would deliver the deposit bag to me. Deposits after the weekend were fairly decent for the medium-sized church and the bank bag could be bulging from time to time.

Typically, the Administrator accompanied me as I loaded the overstuffed bank bag into my vehicle and drove three miles to the bank. That particular Monday, she did not accompany me, I went to the bank by myself.

I needed the monies to be counted at that time and obtain the deposit receipt that morning. I do not recall the particular reason for using the in-bank service rather than the night deposit drop other than requiring the deposit receipt immediately.

The single line in the bank was long, their line for business transactions was not open. Four people were ahead of me. I noticed the fellow in front of me, he had a baseball cap on and was tall, his hair was dark and nicely groomed. I could not see what type of transaction he was holding. I wanted to calculate how long my wait might be with each patron. The old man in front of the guy in front of me had a small bag similar to mine. I knew his transaction was for a business and would be tying up a teller for quite a while as would mine.

Good fortune shined! Another teller opened her window. The old man went to her just as the patron at the window directly in front of the line finished his transaction and the guy in front of me stepped up to the window. "Good! I'll be back at my desk in time for lunch," I thought.

Only a few minutes after the guy stepped up to the teller, his transaction was finished. Hooray! My turn. I stepped up to the window and the teller was pointing to the man she had just served. She was waving her hand as if to indicate he forgot something, like maybe his wallet, or his cash. She did not speak, just waved as to indicate something about that man.

Good Samaritan me, jumped into action and ran toward the door, stepping outside while holding the door open, I yelled to the guy, "Hey, you forgot something! The teller wants you."

Just then, another Good Samaritan was approaching the bank doors which I was holding open. He heard what I had shouted and turned to catch the guy in case the guy hadn't heard me. Just then, I heard the bank teller regain her voice as she shouted, "HE'S GOT A GUN!"

Holy sh*t! I too screamed, "HE'S GOT A GUN!" Images of gunfire filled my head as I feared that the second Good Samaritan might get shot - all because of me trying to help.

The second Good Samaritan stopped in his tracks and ran toward me. The alarm was sounding, police were everywhere and someone came to pull me and the other Good Samaritan into the bank as it was put into lock down.

The police were there, at the bank, already. Not ten minutes, not five minutes, more like zero minutes! As it turned out, they were expecting this character to rob one of the banks in the N.W. part of town, Tucson, and had stake-outs at all the banks in that area, that specific day.

The robber, a drug addict, was predictable in his robbing habits. No kidding! That is what the police told me. They knew he was going to hit a bank that Monday.

The robber was able to escape the parking lot but was captured as he pulled into the next bank down the road where another stake-out was waiting.

My bank stayed in lock down for a couple of hours, or at least it seemed that way to me. I phoned my boss and told her what had happened and she thought I was joking.

From that point onward, I insisted on depositing the monies into the night drop, although that was frightening as well - a robber could walk up to any of the vehicles stuck in the drive-up business line and rob all of us.

Fortunately for me, that was my one and only bank robbery story while at a bank. I do have another bank robbery story about how I was driving to work and was almost killed by the high speed chase as another bank robber raced in my direction with screaming police cars behind him. That was terrifying because where I was turning was a dead end and I feared... that's another true story for another time. Be safe my friends!