Crime: The Amateurs

Time was when the bank robber was the prince of professional criminals. But nowadays, it seems, the rankest amateurs can knock over a bank—and a remarkable number of them are trying it. In 1932, the bank-heisting heyday of John Dillinger and his ilk, there were only 606 bank robberies in the U.S. Last year the FBI reported a record number of 1,250, and the pace is even faster in 1963.

One reason for the outbreak is the proliferation of branch banks, many of them lightly guarded, in U.S. suburbs. It is, therefore, almost inevitable that the highest number of bank holdups is in that state of sprawling suburbia—California. So far this year, there have been 103 bank robberies just in Los Angeles County, an average of two for every three banking days. The holdup men average $6,000—and receive an average seven years in jail if caught. Federal Judge Thurmond Clarke sentences two or three each week in his Los Angeles court. Some 90% of the robbers are amateurs, says Clarke.

Typical of the California heisters was Lynne Kilpatrick Swisher, 18, who stuck up a Wells Fargo bank in San Francisco, got away with $456, but turned herself in a week later. She had used the money for a trip to Hawaii and told cops: “It was worth five years in jail to me. I’ve had a wonderful vacation, a real ball.”

A 21-year-old man was picked up by Los Angeles police after he tried to rob two banks by threatening tellers with a baseball bat. A housewife left her two children eating candy at a bus-stop in Hermosa Beach, stuck up a Bank of America branch at toy gun point for $4,000, picked up her kids and strolled away. She was arrested down the street. Ludicrous as some of these amateurs’ efforts are, they do not amuse the cops. Growls one Los Angeles veteran: “When you take loot, you’ve lost your amateur standing.”