Standard Deviations: Drive-thru bank robberies? Are we really that lazy?
Phoenix Taggart, 40, is accused of robbing an American First Credit Union Wednesday, Feb. 15, in Clinton.
Wanna know what’s wrong with America?
I’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong. It has nothing to do with our struggling public schools, the troubled economy or even the serial liar we just elected president.
It all comes down to one inescapable conclusion. We’re lazy.
Need proof? Look no further than this week’s edition of “Criminals With More Guts than Brains,” which gives us … drive-thru bank robbers.
That’s right, America. Apparently we’re all so fat and lazy that even our bank robbers can’t be bothered with exiting their getaway vehicles long enough to commit a felony.
RELATED: Woman arrested after robbery of America First Credit Union in Clinton
Exhibit A: At about 4 p.m. last Wednesday, police say a woman robbed the America First Credit Union at 1724 N. 2000 West in Clinton, absconding with an undisclosed amount of cash. Ordinarily, this would be just another girls-behaving-badly crime story. But this one has a twist.
Police accuse the suspect, Phoenix Taggart, 40, of attempting the robbery at the financial institution’s drive-thru window.
Why on earth would someone attempting to rob a bank use the drive-thru? Detective Dick Murdock with Clinton Police Department is still chuckling about it.
“That’s beyond any of us,” Murdock admitted with a laugh.
Murdock says he’s been with Clinton P.D. for 17 years, and he has a total of 22 years in law enforcement experience. In all that time, the concept of a criminal robbing a bank from the comfort of his or her own vehicle is a first for him.
“This is not my first bank robbery case,” he said. “But it is my first drive-thru bank robbery.”
No one was hurt in the incident, and police weren’t disclosing how much money was taken. They say they identified Taggart’s vehicle from surveillance video; she was arrested the next day during a traffic stop and booked into Davis County Jail accused of one count of robbery, a second-degree felony.
I asked Murdock if these sorts of drive-thru robberies ever go well.
“Actually, they go great for the banks,” he said. “It’s fantastic for the financial institutions.”
And for the perpetrator? Not so much, Murdock admits.
I’m no criminal mastermind, but even I know the odds of pulling off a bank job are already pretty slim. But to conduct the entire operation belted inside your vehicle?
One of the motivating factors to get a teller to hand over wads of cash to a bank robber is the threat of something bad happening. There’s usually an implied “Give me all your money and nobody gets hurt” contract in the robber-robbee relationship.
But when you’re at a bank’s drive-thru window — which I assume is protected by bulletproof glass — that threat seems a bit more removed.
When you add the fact that police say Taggart passed her robbery note to the teller via the drive-thru’s pneumatic tube delivery system? Well, the motivation to comply with a robber’s demands seems almost non-existent.
Seriously, that must have been one whale of a demand in that note: ”This is a robbery. Give me all your money or I will continue to sit here and idle at your drive-thru. And just remember, the Division of Air Quality’s AQI for particulate matter and ozone is in the ‘mandatory action’ range today.”
Murdock was reticent to provide very many details on the case.
“I love to read the paper, and I love these ‘failed criminal’ stories,” Murdock said. “But I hate to give out information in these cases, because I don’t want to educate the criminals.”
Who knows, maybe the suspect simply couldn’t find anybody to drive the getaway car.
As foolish as it sounds, apparently drive-thru bank jobs aren’t all that rare.
Why, just this month a 29-year-old Colorado woman was sentenced to six years in prison after robbing the drive-thru at the Colorado East Bank & Trust branch in the tiny town of Severance (population 597). Apparently, police there are less worried about their criminals becoming any smarter, because reports say that, last May, the woman drove up to one of the bank lanes and put a note through the tube system that read, “Do not sound alarm. The man in the very back wants $100s and $50s. He has a gun on my kids.”
There was no man with a gun in the “very back,” although there were two small children in the car. But they weren’t actually the woman’s offspring — she was just babysitting them.
And you thought you had it bad when your babysitter raids the fridge and eats the last piece of cheesecake.
After the teller gave the robber $1,000, police used video surveillance footage to track the suspect to a nearby park. She admitted to the crime, saying she needed $15,000 to pay for restitution in another pending case. Possibly a carjacking.
Of course, in a classic example of the “crime doesn’t pay” adage, the Colorado woman was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to repay nearly $33,000 in restitution.
When our hapless Colorado criminal finally gets out of prison, she’s going to have to knock off the Denver Mint in order to pay off the restitution for her last robbery. (The U.S. Treasury has drive-thru lanes, right?)
Meanwhile, back in Utah, Phoenix Taggart awaits her day in court. If found guilty, maybe she could ask to serve her time inside her vehicle at the county’s impound lot.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.