I have been in two bank holdups in my life. In San Francisco, the guy in front of me in line was acting strangely. I remembered his face because he looked just like a co-worker, though it wasn’t him. Just after he got to the teller window, he put a wad of bills in his back pocket and the teller became hysterical.
Apparently, he gave her a threatening note. She couldn’t tell the police what happened. I was the only person who could identify him. A week or so later, an FBI agent came to my house and asked me to look at some pictures. When I selected the guy, the agent gave me a knowing look. “He has held up about 10 banks,” he said.
Is bank robbery really that easy?
In the other, I was cashing a paycheck at a bank in Arlington, when several masked men with guns came into the bank, one jumped over the door for the tellers and demanded money.
The teller in front of me again was hysterical. I wasn’t. Why? Because she could see the man behind me pointing a gun and I couldn’t. Also, there were no choices to be made.
What could I do? Run away? Confront the gunman? No. All I could do was stand and wait. And so I was not afraid. (Maybe it just hadn’t sunk in.) In fact, I even insisted on cashing my check before I talked to the police. I get more stressed over selecting an entrĂ©e at a restaurant or a route to take in the car. I know: It doesn’t make sense.
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