Bank Robbers Younger Now, Experts Say

Two teenagers stormed a California Federal Bank branch in Woodland Hills in December wielding guns and herding the employees and customers into a vault. And if it weren’t for a quick-thinking bank guard who helped police nab one of the young men as he fled the scene, the teens might have escaped from the Dec. 11 robbery with more than $75,000 in cash.

Nineteen-year-old Jason Bradley Weiss of Chatsworth, accused of being one of those teenagers, pleaded not guilty to three counts of robbery and one count of assault with a firearm. His 16-year-old alleged accomplice now sits in a Sylmar juvenile jail cell on similar charges.

Does such a bold crime, allegedly committed by two baby-faced kids, mean stickup artists in the bank robbery capital of the world are getting younger?

Apparently so. Police, federal agents and juvenile prosecutors all say that in the last decade they have seen an increase in the number of teenage bank robbers, although no statistics are available.

“There is a trend for more serious crimes for juveniles in general and that includes bank robberies,” said Laura Foland-Priver, deputy district attorney at the Juvenile Court in Sylmar.

Shortly after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, FBI officials noted a sharp rise in the number of juveniles taking part in bank robberies. They dubbed the youngsters “baby bandits” and blamed the explosion of teen robbers on the easy availability of guns on the streets after gun stores were raided by gang members.

In most cases, police say the teenagers are pressured by older gang members or more experienced criminals into committing the holdups, sometimes simply for the money, but on other occasions as a way for younger gang members to prove themselves.

“A lot of times, the bank robberies are gang initiations,” Foland-Priver said. “And often they are committed by a juvenile and an older juvenile, or a juvenile and an adult.”

Det. Norm Jackson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s robbery-homicide division says some of the young men are very “impressionable” and eager to prove themselves or get involved with a lucrative crime by aiding a more experienced criminal.

Teenagers usually do not commit bank holdups on their own, Jackson noted. They are more likely to be part of a crew of robbers.

“They have been doing this for quite a while,” he said. “And it’s mainly when there are multiple suspects involved.”

Unlike robberies in which a single gunman passes a teller a note or quietly threatens only one teller with a discreet pistol, teenage thieves commonly commit “takeover robberies,” forcing all the customers to the floor at gunpoint and then ordering the safes and cash drawers emptied.

“They mainly do takeover robberies,” says FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley. “It’s like a follow-the-leader type thing. The teens are looking for somebody to tell them what to do.”

Bosley said FBI statistics indicate that most robbers performing “note jobs” are in their 20s, but that teenagers are more apt to commit more dangerous and violent robberies.

Their adult confederates tell the teenagers that even if the youths are caught, their sentence will not be as stiff as an adult would get, Foland-Priver said. The apprentice Dillingers shouldn’t put their faith in that. Lesser sentences might have been the case in the past, Jackson said, but nowadays both police and the district attorney’s office push for adult sentences for teen bank robbers.

“If they are 16 or 17, because of the crime, we are going to [try to move] them to adult” courts, she said. “And depending on what type of crime it is, they will go to adult court and then to state prison when they turn 18,” potentially for as long as 15 years.