Results tagged “bankrobbery”

Worse bank trip ever: A woman headed to her HSBC at 5 Penn Plaza and found herself in the middle of a bank robbery. So she tweeted it: "my bank was just held up- with me in it. HSBC 34 and 8. also my whole trackball is GONE!!! im locked in the bank still." She continued with updates: "they want to question us. i didnt even notice this gappenning while i was standing there," "cant figure out how to call work without a trackball... police just arrived. maybe theyll let me go now," and "they wont let us leave the bank." Her most recent Tweet: "Thanks Tmobile for providing help with my shitty phone while im stick in a bank hold up. thats sarcasm." Well, the upside is she's safe. The downside is that TV shows and Hollywood will have to incorporate Twittering hostages when depicting bank robberies. Update: Hopefully the witnesses can all leave now—Tweeting witness says "they totally got the guy. cop said he was lazy. walked right into several Penn station security cams."

A man who apparently robbed a Capital One bank before fleeing the cops fell to his death from an elevated subway platform. MyFoxNY reports, "Around 1:35 p.m., the thief entered a Capital One Bank branch on 113th Street and Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens, and demanded cash. A bank clerk gave the robber some cash with a dye pack." He ran to the A train station, where the Post says the dye pack exploded,which "spooked" the thief. After tossing the cash into the trash, he ran on the tracks, but cops were headed his way at 113th Street: "The bold thief, who sources said was wanted in other heists, then chose flight over fight, trying to make the 20-foot leap onto the roof of a building below. But he missed and fell to the street."

So it looks like detectives' theory that an ex-cop's bank robbery "appears to be economically motivated" is right on the money. Retired NYPD sergeant Thomas Feeney, who was arrested just minutes after robbing a Long Island bank at gunpoint Tuesday, is in major debt because of an ambitious landscaping project on the grounds of his Smithtown, LI, home, which included a new lining for his swimming pool. A neighbor tells the Post, in an article headlined "Poolhardy Choices By Heist Cop," that the pool upgrade was "a luxury item, so it didn't look like he was having any money problems." But an associate of Feeney blames his financial woes on his ex-wife, saying she "cleaned him out" after their divorce. And now she's going to try and get full custody of their daughters, which sucks for them, because their dad was probably just about to open the pool for the summer. Suffolk County Detective Sgt. Robert Doyle says Feeney's credit card debt is "well over $100,000."

At first, cops thought that a series of 15 bank robberies over a two-month period was committed by one incredibly industrious thief. But yesterday the police arrested a pair of brothers for the crimes.

On the heels of yesterday's story about a bank robbery that was foiled in part by an exploding dye pack, we bring you this tale from Long Island. A getaway driver was arrested after he and a "friend" (who managed to flee before police arrived) robbed a bank. James Clark and the friend who did the actual robbing—Newsday reports that the man who told a teller he had a gun was given "unspecified amount of cash and a dye pack from a drawer"—had to leave the getaway vehicle because the dye pack exploded. Oh, and a bank employee copied their license plate number. So Clark called his sister for advice—yes, telling her about dye pack and being spotted—and the sister said he should call 911. Newsday adds that at first Clark told the authorities he had no idea his friend was planning a robbery but later owned up to it.

Exploding Dye Pack 1, Kevin McQuade 0: The NY Times has an interesting story about a serial bank robber—later found to be a suspect in six robberies—who tried robbing a Chase on East 79th on Tuesday. However, "a teller saw Mr. McQuade’s hands and his pants stained by the distinctive red dye from an explosive pack that tellers are trained to slip into a bank robber’s money bag. As Mr. McQuade passed a note to her, the teller hit a silent alarm, the police said, and just before handing over a bag of money she slipped in a dye pack of her own." Then, bank employees followed him out and flagged a patrol car, whose officers arrested McQuade who got dyed again. McQuade allegedly robbed three banks on Monday and his previous notes apparently read, "$7,000, no dye pack, don’t press the alarm and no one will get hurt" and "Gimme all the money, no die pack, no games and no one gets hurt." He was charged with four counts of third-degree robbery and two counts of third-degree attempted robbery.

Wow: The Post reports, "Thieves hid behind a fake chimney to cut a hole in the roof of a Brooklyn bank - then made off with the contents of 60 safe-deposit boxes." The Astoria Federal Saving bank on East 2nd Street and 18th Avenue was robbed by burglars who used "heavy-duty blowtorches normally used under water to slice through the roof" and break into the building. Surveillance footage reportedly shows the thieves going to the roof of a neighboring building to reach the bank and setting up the fake chimney (!!). The bank said it wasn't clear whether customers would be reimbursed— one anguished customer said, "I purposely use the bank because it's supposed to be safer than my house."

With bank robberies on the uptick, authorities are also starting to see more women striking out as bank bandits. Newsday reports, "Three female robbers struck banks five times over four months in Suffolk, and one in Nassau." Usually, Suffolk County Det. Sgt. Robert Doyle says, "Females account for maybe one or two cases a year, on the average. It happens infrequently." Last year, the FBI released a list of the top five female robbers in Southern California, ones with nicknames like the "Starlet Bandit," "Female Truck Driver Bandit," and "Will Kill Bandit," while the Cell Phone Bandit appeared near D.C. John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Robert McCrie explains that bank robberies are a "fairly safe kind of crime to commit in terms of personal risk... It's now a situation where it's becoming an equal opportunity crime. There's no barrier to women being bank robbers. It's not something where you require more muscle mass."

Two masked and armed men stole about $200,000 from a Harlem check cashing operation yesterday morning. The Daily News reports that the suspect, "disguised by black ski masks and hoods and packing handguns," "blitzed a 53-year-old employee as she opened RiteCheck at 2602 Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Witness said, "I thought maybe it was something when they came out with hoods. They walked out. They got in the car. That was it." The employee was not injured, and RiteCheck president Joseph Coleman told the News they would probably beef up security at various locations, "It seems to be a necessity in the current economic situation." Related: Bank robberies are up nationwide and, almost one year ago, two men tried to cash their dead friend's check...and brought the dead body to the check cashing storefront.

The uptick in bank robberies has been chalked up to the friendly bank branches, but let's face it: It's also the economy, stupid! The NY Times frames its story about increasing bank robberies with the five bank robberies across the city: In Manhattan, the TD Bank at 62nd & Broadway; in the Bronx, a WaMu on Westchester Avenue; in Queens, an HSBC in Long Island City (43rd Ave); and in Brooklyn, the Valley National Bank on Avenue J ("near the border between Flatbush and Midwood") and the Sovereign Bank on Manahttan Ave in Greenpoint. A former banking executive says, "It's well documented that during a recession, bank robberies go up. But also, this time of the year is the busiest time for bank robberies. So you combine those two together and it becomes a dangerous time for bank employees."

A report is linking the man suspected of robbing 16 banks throughout the city this year to over 50 other hits across the country throughout the last two decades. Eric Manson has been pegged as the man who has robbed a number of banks in fancy east side neighborhoods around Manhattan as well as ones in Brooklyn and Queens starting in March. Manson was just let out of federal prison in 2007 after serving time for other robberies, including a dozen here in town he confessed to in 1998. He also committed 40 more in California in the '90s where he was known as the "change-maker bandit," asking tellers for change before demanding thousands in cash. Nowadays he simply passes cashiers a threatening note saying to give him hundreds of dollars. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly recently noted that banks have made themselves more vulnerable over the years by being open more hours and not having tellers behind glass.

While the NYPD isn't happy about more-welcoming banks enticing robbers, the fact is robbers just like banks. Yesterday, a group of men trying to drill into a Staten Island bank were caught by the police. Acting on a tip, the cops headed to the Richmond County Savings Bank on Richmond Avenue and "spotted the four-man team struggling to break into the vault, which holds 1,000 safety- deposit boxes filled with valuables." The perps had first "made their way into a Pearl Vision eyeglass store next door and used high-speed drills and jackhammers to bore through the wall into the bank." And it's suspected the team is responsible for similar robberies; in a Howard Beach incident, they got a key to the store next to a Sovereign bank and then drilled into the vault, taking $100,000.

Wild: A man who robbed the Sterling National Bank on 7th Avenue near 38th Street in Manhattan was chased and tackled by the bank's ATM repairmen. The robber, Thomas Slater, had passed a note to a teller and stole $1,082--and some of the money went flying onto the street during the chase as Slater wove through cars to evade capture. CityRoom reports, "Pedestrians walked up to the cops or bank employees and handed over money that they had picked up." Police spokesman Paul Browne said, "Even in the bad economy, all $1,082 that had been scattered before the police arrived was recovered in full." Slater was charged with bank robbery and is suspected in three other bank robberies. And the NY Times' director of mobile products Robert Z. Samuels saw Slater get tackled--he took some video of the arrest.

Earlier today, Wachovia announced a $23.9 billion quarterly loss, "one of the largest in banking history." We also noticed this Wachovia-related incident on the Gothamist Newsmap: "Another Wachovia Bank Robbery" in Manhattan.

Perhaps to no one's surprise, the Tuesday morning armored car robbery was planned by an employee of the armored car company. An off-duty Dunbar Armored Car guard Robert Blackmon was arrested in the $330,000 robbery, after surveillance footage apparently showed his figure waiting in the vestibule of an M&T Bank location in Kips Bay.

WNBC reports that someone robbed the Chase bank at Columbus and West 72nd Street, only for the red dye pack to explode, "splattering wet money on West 73rd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam in front of 105 West 73d Street." The thief, naturally, fled the scene. How Stuff Works explains that some dye packs are now paper-thin. And it was an exciting time on the Upper West Side: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was getting her nails done just down West 72nd Street at about the same time. A reader who sent Gawker a photo of the Rice-related hubbub said, "We boo'd her pretty soundly."

The federal authorities are likely to charge the police officer accused of robbing $113,000 from a Sovereign bank in Pennsylvania. Christian Torres, who was arrested on Thursday, is now also suspected of robbing two other banks in Manhattan last year. The 21-year-old transit cop, held at Berks County Jail in Pennsylvania, is on suicide watch.

If only all crimes were this easy to solve. Last Friday, a woman robbed a North Fork Bank at 71st Street and New Utrecht Avenue in Dyker Heights. Now the police say she returned to the scene of the crime and returned the money yesterday.

• Today on the Gothamis Newsmap: a bank robbery on 40th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, a stabbing on Morris Ave. and East 190th St. in the Bronx, and a sinkhole on 68th St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan.
• The original and exisiting Coney Island boardwalk originated from wood chopped down from the Amazon rainforest. The new and improved CI boardwalk will be made of plastic, made from oil. Onwards and upwards!
• Queens Crap reports the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit "sent police to St. Saviour's today to make sure the developers' efforts to demolish the church were not impeded."
• That duct tape-homicide at the Best Western motel? The ME ruled it a suicide.
• The Park Slope Armory's $16 million renovation was revealed; the YMCA will operate the stunning facility.
• Bernard Kerik was back in court. Prosecutors are arguing his lawyer has to recuse himself because he's a likely witness.
• Parker Posey sells her East Village digs, joining the establishment at 30 Fifth Avenue.
• A Connecticut battalion chief firefighter was shot during a bank robbery. Cops shot another person by accident as the actual robber made his getaway.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Livingston St. in Brooklyn, another bank robbery on 2nd Ave. in Manhattan, and a third bank robbery on 71-41 Main St. in Queens.
• Even diamonds can get family members riled up and stabbing this way and that.
• Something Into Plowshares: behold the transformed Park Slope Armory.
• Toys in Babeland coming to family-friendly Park Slope. The Pink Pussycat Boutique, which operates across the street from a public school soldiers on.
• A NJ woman was arrested after the death of an ex-police officer who died while undergoing plastic surgery by an unlicensed surgeon.
• The touch, the feel, of cotton handed out to passersby in NYC.
• The body of a man discovered dead with his mouth covered in duct tape in a Best Western Hotel has been deemed suspicious by the cops.
• Barry Feinstein, a long-time member of the MTA board of directors, is stepping down after a fruitful run.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx.
• A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the country will be on hand to observe.
• Someone crunched the numbers and found that The New York Times Fashion Magazine is almost as white as the arctic in February, pre-global warming. The 55% of New Yorkers who aren't white are probably not the targeted demographic the Times Fashion Mag is looking for anyway.
• A New York Presbyterian Hospital official in charge of the Women, Infants, and Children program--which was designed to provide food for impoverished women and children--is accused of siphoning off a few hundred thousand dollars for vacations and comfortable living.
• City Councilman Eric Gioia is running a "carbon neutral" campaign for public advocate, that involves the use of more emails than flyers, the purchase of carbon offsets, and the use of hybrid vehicles.
• The International House of Pancakes downtown Brooklyn location is doing so well that plans are in the works for locations in Bed-Stuy, East New York, and Williamsburg.
• The family of a 25-year-old, who allegedly had his jaw broken by an EMT, is suing the city for $2 million. They accuse the EMT of punching the young man in the face after the patient accidentally drooled on him as he was giving him oxygen.
• Summertime probably seems far off today, but the organizers of the Movies With a View program are looking for submissions of short films to be shown before features in July and August amidst the moonlit shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Cranford St. and Amboy Rd. on Staten Island, a bank robbery on East Gun Hill Rd. in the Bronx, and a carjacking on the Horace Harding Expressway and 108th St. in Queens.
• Update on the 14-year-old girl who was killed and stuffed into a boiler by her father: The ME's office found that she was pregnant - and they are testing the DNA to see if her father impregnated her.
• For those who read Maxim for the articles and believe in the lad mag's editorial integrity, it apparently published an album review of the new Black Crowes' release without listening to it. Maxim later explained it was an "educated guess preview."
• Subway delays are up by 31% from a year ago and are at 154% the level of delays in 2005. Capital improvements are being singled out as the cause of the dramatic increases.
• West Village speakeasy Chumley's may not be lost to the ages after all. Construction begins Monday and the owner hopes to reopen in May.
• A corner townhouse that has 100 feet of Park Avenue frontage may be undesirable because of its design. Or its $30-35 million price tag.
• Gossipmonger Baird Jones was discovered dead in his East 8th St. apartment yesterday evening. The 53-year-old purveyor of celebrity tidbits to multiple gossip columns reportedly died from natural causes.
• A Dallas police officer in Sen. Hillary Clinton's motorcade was killed in a crash today.
• Yesterday marked the 43rd anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.
• And get your Cosmopolitans ready: There's a new Sex & the City trailer that drops some big bombshells and a good joke about feminine grooming.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an injured police officer at Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn, a gas leak on South 8th St. and Wythe Ave. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery at the North Fork branch on 87th St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
  
• The FDNY will be stationing a battalion chief at the Deutsche Bank building until it is fully dismantled.
  
• Someone in the Clinton campaign said that there's a 5% chance that in the event of a deadlock between Obama and Clinton at the Democrats' national convention, Al Gore may arise as a compromise candidate.
  
• Plans for a Veselka on the Bowery may be on the rocks, as a liquor license for the Avalon building location looks unlikely.
  
• The 69-year-old man, who was killed after being sideswiped by a cab and then run over by a bus on West 57th St. yesterday, was on his way to deliver candy to Oprah's best pal Gayle King.
  
• A 500 lb. man is suing the FDNY for $5 million after ten firefighters, who were trying to take him to the hospital using a pulley-and-platform rig to get the man out the building, dropped him down a flight of stairs.
  
• Patty Hearst's French bulldog won Best of Opposite Sex in the breed's category (a male won Best of Breed) at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
  
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a citywide network of water-borne mass transit, where boats could ferry New Yorkers from stop to stop all over the city's five boroughs.
  

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a serious trauma at East 16th St. and Moore Pl. in Brooklyn, a water search at Kosciusko Bridge in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery on Lexington Ave. in Manhattan,
• Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who popularized transcendentalism in the West with the support of The Beatles, died yesterday at an undetermined age.
• Postmodern reality at its best: Silvercup Studios, where "Gossip Girl," is filmed could actually become an educational institution.
• A Whole Foods location is opening in Gowanus, Brooklyn, after groundbreaking last spring and much consternation.
• Going against the grain of many city mayors who are declaring their municipalities a safe haven for illegal immigrants, Mayor Mark Boughton of Danbury, CT wants to align his police force with federal law enforcement to crack down on undocumented workers.
• Brooklyn's 4th Ave. has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last five years. The new-and-improved version seems equally unimpressive to some.
• Customers at the Grand Central Oyster Bar who want to order New England clam chowder will have to ask for "Giants Clam Chowder" this week.
• Big Brother is a salesman. He wants to follow you to sell you stuff.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at 104th Ave. and Remington St. in Queens, a bank robbery on Lexington Ave. and 45th St. in Manhattan, and a gas main break on Van Siclen Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Midtown Lunch considers why it was left off the positive press clippings wall of the new Goodburger.
• New York Shitty wonders about these Bed-Stuy guard dogs - they only have ten feet of leash and don't seem to have much food.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 7th Ave. in Manhattan, a bank robbery on 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, and another bank robbery on 3rd Ave. in Manhattan. Save us Johnny Utah!
• Stuff embedded in asphalt; it's cooler than it initially sounds.
• Recreate the ambiance of Rob-from-Cloverfield's going-away party before things get crazy by downloading the jam's soundtrack.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 31st St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, an attempted sexual assault at Broadway and Gates Ave. in Brooklyn, and an aircraft incident at Laguardia in Queens.
• The Yankees Double-A farm team in Trenton has a mascot named Chase, who catches frisbees, brings water to umpires, and serves as a canine batboy. In his off hours, he managed to knock up the other team mascot, Cynderella, and they're expecting a litter soon. Congratulations to the both of them.
• Gov. Spitzer's budget, released today, is about $100 million shy of what educators were hoping for.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: person under a train at 71st St. and 16th Ave. in Brooklyn, a stabbing on 112th St. and Lexington Ave. in Manhattan, and a bank robbery at Ave. of the Americas and West 18th St. in Manhattan.
• The Times wonders if people will be hoarding pre-rate-increase Metrocards the way token buyers used to stock up before a fare hike.
• A 17-year-old from Mt. Vernon was being held at Rikers Island after he was accused of statutory rape for having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and the judge who sent him there ordered that he should be put under suicide watch. The teenager was put into the jail's general population instead and he hung himself within 24 hours.