I used to work at a bank, but it was a huge downtown bank where most people didn’t arrive in cars, plus it was secured by armed guards 24/7. So at a smaller suburban-type branch bank, it might not occur to me that parking in the lot before opening might be a problem. I would be surprised by police showing up to ask me to leave, but I would be like, “Oh, of course! Duh!”
To me? No. Ever?
Bank teller forced to rob bank with bomb strapped to him. From the linked article:
Coral Gables, FL, United States (AHN) - Police believe the family of two bank tellers was targeted Friday by a group of bank robbers. The assailants strapped a bomb to one of the tellers and forced him to rob a bank.
[QUOTE=Ayinde O. Chase - AHN News Editor]
Investigators say a group of men invaded a home in Coral Gables around midnight Thursday. They seized Diego Uscamayta, 26, and drove him away in his own red Mustang.
The three men reportedly told Uscamayta that he would never see his parents again if he didn’t assist them in robbing banks.
[/QUOTE]
Bear in mind that my info is ten years old. We had a duress word at my bank–a seemingly innocuous phrase we’d utter if we were under duress. There was other stuff too, but frankly I don’t recall much more than that. We were supposed to cooperate for the most part, though. That was a pragmatic rather than altruistic policy on the bank’s part, though.
The bomb thing has been done at least once before, and they blew the poor bastard up.
Forgot to mention, they hardly needed to target the guy’s family since they hung the bomb on HIM.
That was just the first article I could find that fit the criteria. I’ll look for others if you like, though others have more google-fu.
I agree it was a bad plan. Planting the bomb on the patsy when you have his family is a pointless complication, increasing the number of things that can go wrong without doing anything to make the heist more profitable or easier to pull off. The robbers are better off with someone from desk side anyway–someone who can wire money. Pick the right bank branch and there’s a lot of damage that person can do in a morning.
Eep. I’ve sat outside my bank before, in my car, before opening.
I was already out for the morning and I needed to get something done at the bank, so instead of going back to work between errands I waited at the bank.
This was a suburban branch in the parking lot of a four-store strip mall. It’s got its own parking lot. No one stopped me or gave me funny looks as I watched them unlock.
They probably assessed that the fat pasty girl with the weird hair was not going to rob them that day.
Not google-fu, I just happened to have seen both the 48 Hours and part of the Lifetime movie in the past couple of weeks.
Michelle Renee. Her own website: http://www.michelle-renee.com/speakingtopics/photosbio.html
48 Hours page: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/03/48hours/main5361472.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
According to Renee, the robbers broke into her home and held her, her daughter, and her roommate hostage over night. The next morning, they strapped dynamite to them, and forced Renee to rob the bank she managed, while they kept her daughter. One of the alleged kidnappers said Renee was involved and that he’d had an affair with her. For a number of reasons, Renee did not make a good witness, and he was not convicted of kidnapping her. He was convicted of kidnapping her daughter and roommate. In the same trial, a woman was acquitted, at least partly because her confession was thrown out. The other two alleged kidnappers were convicted, however, on all charges, including kidnapping Michelle Renee. There was never really any evidence that Renee was involved, and the police and prosecutors ultimately seemed to believe her. So it seems to have happened at least once.
As for the OP’s question, I’ve heard it before and it makes sense. I’m not sure that I would remember it, should I need to be at a bank first thing in the morning. I’m not really inclined to be anywhere other than work that early, though, so I doubt it will ever come up.
Does it apply if someone is standing at the bank door too? It’s been a while since I’ve been in a bank office that had its own parking, but I’ve been at the bank’s door waiting quite a few times. Several of those were my first visit to that particular office, so the bank’s workers could not identify me. Apparently I look about as threatening as a stuffed mosquito-shaped doll, though.
Thanks for your responses. I should have more accurately used “non-bank employee” in the OP.
We are a suburban bank. There is a pretty complex ritual that goes on each morning to make sure there is no one in the bank waiting for us and that there is no one waiting for us to open so they can rob us. Not allowing someone to sit at the front door (or stand around) while we do these things is a security measure. I was just curious if it would ever occur to you that this is an issue.
FWIW we are not allowed to have photos of our kids in our office either, because they don’t want the general public to know about our family so the family cannot be used to help facilitate a robbery.
And the easiest way to rob a bank? Ask. It’s not our money and we don’t want to fight you for it.
There was the neck-collar bomb, where the pizza delivery guy was exploded. But it turns out he was in on it.
It did at Union Planters.
The family kidnap/duress thing was the official reason we were prohibited from having any personal photographs anywhere in the bank. One of my friends was written up by the auditors for having a tiny picture of her dog at her teller station.
… 80-90% of the bank workers who live in my home town go to the same pool as my family… I say “the ones who live in my home town” because many of the bank workers are “M-F commuters” and go someplace else to their family on the weekend.
… the previous cashier at Caja Madrid was my HOA President for several years…
… I have tutored the children of the manager of one CAN office…
Whomever came up with that rule is an idjit of the highest order. Seeing a picture of two smiling blonde kids doesn’t tell anybody where to find them 
My wife used to work at a bank that was 2 blocks away from our house. She was usually the first person there and had to do the initial walk-through. I don’t think they had a policy about unknown people parked in the parking lot. Many times, I used to drop her off. I would wait for her to go inside and do her walk-through before I left.
She told me she had to perform a particular act before anyone else could come in, but she said that she wasn’t allowed to tell me what that act was. I figured it out the second day just by watching the pattern.
One night, she got a phone call from the assistant branch manager (ABM). The alarms had gone off at the police station and they had called the ABM. The ABM lived 60 miles away and asked my wife to go in and do a walk-through. It was around 8:30 PM and there was no way I was going to let her walk through the building alone. I grabbed a baseball bat and drove her down there.
We went into the bank and I followed her around, ready to beat the living crap out of anyone who was in there. We were about halfway through when I suddenly realized that if the cops came upon the scene, I was going to be in some serious doo-doo, since it would look like I had threatened her and had made her open the bank.
After that, I told her that they didn’t pay her enough to inspect the building for robbers and that the next time someone called, she should say that she wasn’t anywhere near the bank.