New website aids apprehension of bank robbers
Special to The American
It should be easier to track down bank robbers after the implementation of a new online database announced this week, www.bandittrackerstlouis.com.
“This new website will be a very effective tool for identifying and catching bank robbery suspects because it provides 24-hour access to citizens, bank employees and the news media,” said Roland J. Corvington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in St. Louis.
“Law enforcement can also use the site as a clearing house to see if their suspect committed a robbery in another jurisdiction.”
So far this year, there have been 59 bank robberies in Eastern Missouri with 70 percent of those cases solved. Last year’s total was 45. In the last 10 years, the record was set in 2002 with 77 bank robberies.
The website, features photos and descriptions of individuals who robbed banks throughout the 48 counties and the City of St. Louis covered by the FBI’s St. Louis office. The site also plots where the crimes occurred on a map. To submit a tip, visitors to the website can either call “Crimestoppers” and remain completely anonymous or submit tips on-line around the clock.
Similar “BanditTracker” sites in other states have aided the arrest of a suspect in serial robberies in Houston, San Antonio and Austin; the capture of a suspect in a $1 million armored car robbery in Dallas; a capture in Little Rock just days after the launch of its site; the arrest of the notorious Scarecrow Bandit ring in Dallas; and eight suspect arrests in six months in Chicago.
The St. Louis FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force, which investigates the bulk of bank robberies in the St. Louis area, is comprised of FBI Special Agents and detectives from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, St. Louis County Police Department, St. Charles County Sheriff’s Office and the Creve Coeur Police Department.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Dan Isom, St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch and Capt. David Kaiser with the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Office joined Corvington in making the announcement.