Who Robs Banks?
A few bank robbers are driven by political ideology. In Europe, bank robbery was a source of support for the Irish Republican Army. In the United States, members of the leftist Weather Underground were imprisoned for robbery and murder in the holdup of an armored car in New York, and no bank-robbery photo is more famous than the one showing a rifle-toting Patty Hearst hitting a bank in San Francisco with the Symbionese Liberation Army. On the right, white supremacists have used bank robbery as a source of funds. Some bank robbers just want to upgrade their style of life quickly. A couple who helped rob an armored-car company in Charlotte of $17 million moved out of their mobile home into a mansion and spent thousands of dollars on a BMW convertible, a Rolex watch, and a diamond ring. Jake Jacoby, a detective who has investigated bank robberies in Fairfax, say the Cell Phone Bandit and her boyfriend used some of their haul to splurge on designer clothes and electronics. Nationally, only
