By Tom Hays, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- Bank robbers armed with threatening notes were so busy last year that they distracted police from fighting terrorism, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday.
With bank heists up more than 200 percent in early 2003, the Police Department “was compelled to divert manpower dedicated to counterterrorism to address the problem,” Kelly said in a speech to the New York Bankers Association in Manhattan.
Kelly told the bankers that thanks to more police patrols at banks -- and security measures adopted by the industry -- the trend began to reverse last summer. Bank robberies are down about 34 percent so far this year, he said.
“While the problem has abated significantly, it is still too early to declare victory,” he said.
More than 400 bank robberies were reported in the city last year, up 64 percent from 2002. The sharp rise defied a dip in the city’s overall robbery rate and outpaced increases nationwide, exasperating police and bank officials.
The vast majority of stick ups involved robbers who passed notes to tellers demanding cash. Some were drug addicts or vagrants, who use no more than a baseball cap and sunglasses as disguise.
Arrested robbers have told police that word has spread on Rikers Island that banks are an easy target. “Ocean’s 11" it’s not: Kelly recounted how one bandit who wanted a teller to think he was carrying anthrax “passed a note instead saying, ‘I have amtraks,’ as in the railroad.”
Kelly credited bankers with bolstering security at branches in Manhattan and elsewhere. Measures have included putting tellers behind bulletproof glass -- known as “bandit barriers” -- and installing digital surveillance cameras that produce clearer images of suspects.
Police also have advocated wider use of exploding cash packs that coat robbers with a bright dye.
Kelly cited the case of a note-passing robber who held up two banks in Manhattan on Wednesday within a 20-minute period. When one of his cash packs exploded, he tossed his dye-covered jacket into a garbage can before fleeing.
Police later found his identification in the jacket. He was arrested at his Brooklyn address that night.