By Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A rash of bank robberies in the opening weeks of 2004 has reinforced a lesson that Greater Cincinnati police learned long ago: Bank robberies are as unpredictable as the people who commit them.

Unlike crimes that can be linked to the drug trade or gun trafficking or the weather, bank robberies have proven to be more difficult for law enforcement to figure out.

Statistics vary wildly from year to year, and the numbers so far in 2004 are no exception.

There already have been three bank robberies in Cincinnati and a total of six in Greater Cincinnati. Those numbers are ahead of last year's pace, when the city finished with a total of 13 and the region with 61.

Law enforcement officials say the fast start does not necessarily mean bank robberies are becoming a more serious problem again after two years of steady declines.

"It's just hard to pinpoint what it means," said Lt. Bill Fields, an investigator for the Springdale Police Department. "There's really no rhyme or reason. There's no set pattern."

While crime rates for many offenses tend to rise or fall gradually, the graph for bank robberies looks more like a roller coaster. The annual number of robberies in Cincinnati, for example, has gone from 24 to 63 to 32 to 13 in just the past four years.

Although authorities were happy about the sharp decline from 2001 to 2003, they were at a loss to explain it. Bank robbers, they say, defy any label.

Some robbers are drug addicts; others are businessmen. Some rob banks as a way of life; others do it in desperation to pay off gambling debts or household bills. Some prefer out-of-the-way rural banks; others go for crowded banks in the heart of downtown.

"As many people as there are in the world, there are reasons bank robberies occur," said Jim Turgal, spokesman for the FBI in Cincinnati. "Different people do it for different reasons. There are just so many motives."

Where the money is

Authorities began thinking more about those motives two years ago, when the number of robberies soared to 63. They started collecting and analyzing data about the crimes in search of clues that could explain the big increase and subsequent decline.

If they could learn more about the crime, they reasoned, they could do more to stop it.

They found that the main reason for the sudden increase was a small group of serial bank robbers working independently throughout Greater Cincinnati. Four suspects, all arrested, accounted for more than 40 robberies.

With those four in custody, authorities say, it's only natural the total number of robberies would come down. But they say other factors played a part, too.

In response to the outbreak of robberies two years ago, all law enforcement agencies in Hamilton County adopted the Cincinnati Police Department's "uniform response plan." The plan sets standards for responding to robberies, collecting evidence and conducting investigations.

"Agencies are now all responding in the same way," said Cincinnati Police Lt. Steve Kramer. "They get there quicker. They observe and work in a standard way."

Police also established training seminars for bank employees that taught them not only how to respond to a robbery, but also how to remember details that might help authorities catch the robbers.

"We spend a lot of time and money in training employees," said Darrin Steinmann, corporate investigations manager at Fifth Third Bank, Cincinnati's largest. "We've decided as an institution that we have to always be prepared."

Steinmann won't provide details about the training, but police credit the banks with making some meaningful changes.

"We can't tell you what has had the most impact," Kramer said. "All I can tell you is that a whole bunch of people went out and did something about it."

The public has helped too, Kramer said. Six robberies last year were solved because of tips called in to Crime Stoppers, which distributes photos of suspects.

Kramer said the quality of those photos has improved because of new computer equipment that allows police to clean up the grainy images from bank cameras.

But authorities acknowledge all the changes don't mean they've finally figured out bank robbers. They don't know yet if the spate of robberies early this year is the start of another big increase, or just another bump on the roller coaster ride.

All police know for certain is that as long as banks are around, they will hold a certain allure for criminals.

"They decide they've got to go where the money is," Fields said. "And in their minds, the banks have got all the money."