Northwest Arkansas Banks Faced 2007 Heist Spike

(To view a map and status of 2007 bank robberies in northwest Arkansas, click here.)

A who’s who of Northwest Arkansas bankers gathered in the lobby of the First Security Bank on Sunset Avenue in Springdale on April 24, 2007.

They were showing support for the Arkansas Bankers Association’s robbery prevention program, a series of posters requesting patrons to remove hats and dark glasses, and the introduction of a reward program for information leading to arrests.

Forty-three days later, a rash of 10 bank heists began in Northwest Arkansas — specifically in Crawford, Sebastian and Washington counties.

According to many police departments, there were 15 bank robberies in those three counties during 2007, a 400 percent increase from 2006 when there were only three.

To be fair, many of the 2007 heists were committed by serial robbers who hit multiple banks on a spree.

Sixty-eight year-old Ernest Gail Lail allegedly robbed six banks across the state before gaining notoriety as the first robber to be sought after and publicized via a MySpace page.

But the upward trend is alarming for bankers and law enforcement, particularly if things get tight in the slowed economy and those predisposed to crime, or just desperate citizens, decide “banks are where they keep all the money.”

The FBI has only published statistics for the first two quarters of 2007, which show there were 30 bank robberies in Arkansas through June 30.

The FBI does not track county-by-county statistics.

Special Agent Steve Frazier in the FBI’s Little Rock office said the statistics division will have to come up with the official number but that his office estimates it worked 57 bank robberies in the state last year.

If that number is correct, it’s an 11 percent increase over 2006 and a 46 percent increase over 2005 and 2004.

Nationwide, during the last recession through the summer of 2001, bank robberies spiked up to 10,246 from 8,568 in 2000.

The next most recent recession was from July 1990 through March 1991. The FBI, mired in its infinite bureaucratic red tape, could not provide statistics for 1990 or before, but there were 10,930 in 1991.

Then bank robberies climbed for the next two years to a high of 11,856 incidents in 1993.

However, for the most part robberies have trended downward, to just less than 7,000 in 2006.

Frazier wouldn’t speculate on a possible recession generating a wave of bank robberies in Northwest Arkansas.

“The FBI does not analyze economic data, however general economics as well as a local economics can play into an increase in crime. There are lots of factors and one of those is economics,” he said.

“We are telling our [member] banks to be prepared for it,” said Bill Holmes, director of services for the ABA. “There are more branches in the state of Arkansas than ever. We have better cooperation [with member banks] but we are expecting to see more of it.”

Beirut Bandit

Joe Loya robbed 24 southern California banks between 1988 and 1989. After seven years in federal prison, he now has to juggle his daughter’s daycare schedule with phone interviews and work.

Loya has written a book, “The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber,” put on a one-man play based on the book, is frequently interviewed by cable news shows about crime, had a syndicated column published by the LA Times and just started working as a counselor in a program that helps transition ex-prisoners back to the outside world.

He speaks with a quick-witted and eloquent vocabulary that would make most any writer envious.

By all accounts, if the prison system ever produced a “reformed criminal,” it is Loya.

Dubbed the “Beirut Bandit,” Loya bucked the trend in terms of demographics.

He claims he was never addicted to drugs or drink and he didn’t belong to gangs.

His reasons for robbing banks stemmed from child abuse and a desire for more money, though he knew he was smart enough to go the traditional route.

“I wasn’t raised in a criminal element,” he said. “I married my rage with my greed.”

“Literally, it takes three minutes and you walk out with $10,000.”

Though sometimes it was only $2,000 to $3,000, he admits, but then he’d just rob two or three banks that day.

Loya points out there are more and more people robbing banks that don’t fit the FBI’s demo of young, drug-addicted male. Senior citizens — Lail for example — and even a former bank employee/former police officer robbed the Arvest Bank in Hindsville on March 10.

Sgt. Jarrard Copeland of the Fort Smith Police Department, whose idea it was to look for Lail using a MySpace page, echoed that sentiment: “Most of these guys are people who aren’t your common thugs and are guys that have bills to pay.”

As for whether the country will see more bank robberies as a result of the economy, Loya thinks it’s likely.

“Oh, yeah, you’ll see robberies. I don’t see why not,” he said. “Human moral fiber is flexible. Finances are a real pressure on moral poise.”

Springdale Spike

The good news is that most bank robberies are solved fairly quickly and that even for a violent crime, people rarely get hurt, though a teller for Metropolitan National Bank in Little Rock, Jim Garrison, was killed in 2006.

Fraizer said the FBI’s solve rate in Arkansas is about 80 percent.

Holmes, with the ABA, claims it the rate is about 90 percent.

Of the 18 robberies committed in Northwest Arkansas during 2006 and 2007, 27 percent are still considered open cases.

Holmes said the average take is less than $3,000. National statistics are around $1,500, so the crime, a federal offense, isn’t really that lucrative.

Mike Taylor, security officer with First Security Bank’s northwest division, said good customer service tactics, such as making eye contact and greeting a person when they walk through the door, are tantamount to high-tech security systems.

“To me that’s the biggest deterrent that we can provide,” he said.

Most robbers have visited the bank at least once before, Taylor said, so letting them know you’ve seen them may make them look elsewhere.

Capt. Laney Morriss is over Springdale’s criminal investigation division. She called 2007 an anomaly with four heists there.

At the end of the year, the division set out to visit all the banks in town and go over security as a proactive measure.

“I’m impressed with the way banks conduct their business, security people are right on task, and they’ve done a good job,” she said.

There’s just not a lot that can be done to keep robbers from having a go at it if they want to, she said.

However, she echoed Taylor’s tactic of eye contact.

“It tells them ‘I’ve seen you, I’m aware of your presence,’” she said.