CT Blue

We don’t seem to make piracy pay. I’m sure I don’t know why, but we don’t.
Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance
Norwich has some dubious distinctions. It is the hometown of Benedict Arnold, who took the Norwich-New London rivalry to what some would consider an extreme, by burning New London. It now watches with fascination as one of its native daughters distinguishes herself as one of the most bizarre criminals of all time.

One Heather Brown has (allegedly) committed six bank robberies in six days. In the old days, this would have been impossible, but banks are now open on Saturdays, and I suppose even on Sunday, so if she is making an assault on the Guinness Book of World Records, the sky’s the limit.

The article to which I’ve linked is much abbreviated from the more richly detailed print edition, in which we learn that this particular Bonnie lost her Clyde early on, when they decided to adopt a rather novel getaway method:

Westerly police believe Brown is responsible for robbing a Washington Trust branch on Franklin Street on Tuesday, where she and a man entered the bank and said they had explosive devices. The pair fled in a tax, but only the male suspect, Ronald Hayes, was inside the cab when Stonington police stopped it.

That’s right, a taxi, and the taxi driver was not in on the plot. Still, give Heather credit for making her escape, enabling her to rob another day, and apparently pick up another Clyde, who helped her out on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, it looks to me like she’s barely turning a profit on her endeavors. Like the Pirates of Penzance, she can’t seem to make criminality pay. She may be looking for a record for consecutive days committing a bank heist, but she’s hardly looking for a record in the loot department. She’s not particularly greedy at all, in fact.

Monday, she robbed a Citizens Bank and asked for only $600.00. By Friday, she had upped her demand to $1,000.00. In the meantime the cops had already seized a van that “they believe is connected to the string of robberies”. Advantage cops, at least money wise. At her present rate, it seems to me she’ll be robbing her way into bankruptcy court. I mean, if you’re going to rob a bank, why ask for a paltry $600? With all that bailout money floating around, any bank worth its salt could easily come up with far more than that.

I blame it on the Norwich Educational system. Even here in Groton our school kids are aware that there is money in banks, and that these days $600 is only just enough for a couple of weeks groceries. Done right, one decent bank job ought to net more than Heather has managed to get in a week. As it is, she’s working hard, doesn’t even get a day off, and has lost her minivan.

C’mon Heather, you can do better. When they make the movie, do you want it to be an action flick, or an updated version of Take the Money and Run?