Epidemic of Bank Robberies Plagues Major Cities Across the Country : Crime: Drugs, hard times and easy pickings are blamed. The 1991 tally is expected to be a record.

From Atlanta to Anchorage, from Seattle to St. Paul, bank robberies were epidemic last year. Authorities blame drugs, hard times, and a new breed of banks that are easy marks.

Although the nationwide total hasn’t been tallied yet, it is expected to top the bank robbery record of 7,837 set in 1990, FBI officials said.

Eight of the nation’s 15 largest metropolitan areas reported a surge in bank heists. Several smaller cities also set records.

Some cities--New York, San Francisco and Boston, among them--saw a decline. But Los Angeles had 810 stickups, by far the highest total of any city in the country, breaking the record of 742 set in 1983. Holdups in Atlanta more than doubled, to 247 from 109 in 1990, and rose in Chicago from 59 to 95.

“It’s a relatively easy crime to commit and it can be quite profitable,” said Magnus Seng, a criminal justice professor at Loyola University Chicago. “Unlike robbing a grocery store where you usually get only a couple of hundred bucks, you’re usually walking away with money at least in the thousands.”

And for drug addicts, that money is a great temptation.

“We’ve got an increasing drug problem, and we’re finding that a primary consideration in almost all our robberies,” said Carmen Piccirillo, who heads the FBI bank robbery unit for Minnesota. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area logged 73 bank robberies last year, breaking the record of 69 set in 1981.

Three out of five arrested bank robbery suspects have tested positive for drug use, said Bob Long, FBI spokesman for the Chicago area.

Law enforcers and bankers also say they believe robberies may be increasing because more people are jobless and desperate.

“When you go through so-called hard times, it seems that crime may take an increase, but there aren’t any statistics to back that up,” Long said.

The growth of branch banking also is a contributing factor, police and the FBI said. Branch banks, particularly in California, have proved to be attractive targets because they generally are spread throughout suburbs, have little security and often are located near highways, aiding getaways.

After Illinois changed its laws to allow more branch banks, the number of robberies skyrocketed, compared to the rest of the Midwest, Seng said.

Still, bank robbery remains a high-risk crime. Three out of four bank robbers are caught, and they face up to 25 years in federal prison for armed robbery, a few years less if unarmed.

“But these people are not the most intelligent criminals in the universe,” Long said.

He cited the case of a man nabbed in Chicago after robbing a bank. President Bush was just down the street, along with three times as many police officers as usual in the area. When the thief ran out of the bank. The red dye pack--inserted to mark the money and the robber--exploded.

“He threw the money in the air, I guess thinking, ‘If I’m not holding it, it doesn’t count,’ ” Long said.

Bank robbers often are repeat offenders, though the risk of getting caught increases with each robbery, he said.

The robberies are most likely to occur on Friday afternoons; most of them are over-the-counter, “hand-over-the-cash” cases netting about $2,000, said Nestor Michnyak, an FBI spokesman at bureau headquarters in Washington.

Most tellers are instructed to comply with a robber’s demands. Thus most robberies aren’t violent, though a Denver stickup by a former bank security guard in June ended with the deaths of four security guards. And the wife of a robbery suspect was killed in a shootout with Chicago police in December.

There are no nationally known Bonnies and Clydes or Willie Suttons among the bank robbery Class of 1991, though some gained local notoriety.

Police in Sacramento say Claude Dawson Jones committed 24 robberies to finance trips to Los Angeles Raider games, often robbing a bank to pay for first-class plane tickets and for limousine rides to the games.

There also was Detroit minister Roy A. Yanke, charged with robbing two banks and admitting to 12 others in order to get money to pay prostitutes whom he watched perform sex acts. And a Florida man dubbed “Helmethead,” who wore a helmet with a dark face shield while robbing as many as 39 banks.

For banks, last year’s robbery records are not just statistical curiosities. They are relying on tighter security, surveillance cameras and newer “bandit barriers” of bulletproof-glass to stem their losses, said Sonia Barbara, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Assn. in Washington.

Ed Pistey, vice president for security at First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles, said losses to banks directly related to robberies are insignificant, but the indirect costs of installing the security systems are “considerable.”

In addition, many banks pay a team of psychologists, dispatched to each robbery site, to help employees deal with stress and trauma, he said.

“Banks are doing all they can to prevent them from happening, but the thing is, bank robberies aren’t a new thing. People rob banks because that’s where the money is,” Barbara said.

Bank Robberies by the Numbers

Here is a list of the bank robbery rates for the nation’s 15 largest metropolitan areas and other cities experiencing significant increases in robberies between 1990 and 1991, according to figures from the FBI.

The list provides the numbers of robberies in 1990 and 1991. Where applicable, previous records and the years they were set are included.

CITY 1991 1990 RECORD YEAR New York City 464 517 928 1979 Los Angeles 810 633 742 1983 Chicago 95 59 59 1990 San Francisco 158 264 N/A N/A Philadelphia 158 97 97 1990 Detroit 93 34 155 1974 Boston 207 285 285 1990 Washington, D.C. N/A 31 66 1975 Dallas 33 28 N/A N/A Houston 67 58 108 1983 Miami 345 331 N/A N/A Atlanta 247 109 109 1990 Cleveland 06 79 79 1990 Seattle 311 255 255 1990 San Diego 317 322 322 1990

Other cities reporting record numbers in 1991:

CITY 1991 1990 RECORD YEAR Anchorage 28 7 16 1989 Little Rock, Ark. 18 17 17 1987 Minneapolis-St. Paul 73 59 6 1981 Norfolk-Richmond, Va. 33 21 N/A N/A