Key Bank robbed in West Seattle this afternoon

Posted by Nick Provenza

Seattle police are trying to find a man who held up a West Seattle bank at gunpoint early this afternoon.

The man showed a black handgun to a teller at a Key Bank branch in the 4700 block of California Avenue Southwest about 1 p.m., a police spokesman said.


He took the money, ran from the bank and got in a waiting car driven, police said. No one was injured.

The robber was described as a black man, in his late 30's or early 40's, about 6-foot-1 and heavy. He was wearing a white baseball cap and a blue suit jacket over a white T-shirt that had an image of a voodoo doll printed on it. He also was wearing round reading glasses and had a slight mustache.

Anyone with information can call 911

2008 BANK ROBBERY STATISTICS RELEASED



Laura Laughlin, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Seattle Division of the FBI, today released the year end bank robbery statistics for the state of Washington. The Seattle Division has jurisdiction over robberies of all federally insured banks in the state.

There were 153 bank robberies and 1 bank burglary in the state during the time period of 1/1/2008 through 12/31/2008. The dollar loss to the state’s banking industry was $743,160. For the second year in a row the state of Washington has seen a significant decline in the number of bank robberies.

In the 10 year period of 1996 through 2006, Washington averaged approximately 300 bank robberies per year. But in 2007, for the first time in 20 years, that number dipped below 200 with just 176 robberies, and in 2008 there was another 13% drop.



While many other parts of the country are seeing increases in bank robbery numbers, investigators here attribute Washington’s decrease to strong partnerships between the FBI and local law enforcement and to the Seattle Division’s bank robbery suppression program known as SafeCatch.

Recognizing that bank robbers keep robbing until they are caught, and that a small number of suspects can be responsible for a large number of robberies in a given area, the ultimate goal of Safecatch is “one robber, one robbery.” The SafeCatch program teaches bank employees the techniques they can use to better assist law enforcement so that bandits can be captured more quickly. In the last 2 years, FBI agents in Washington State have provided Safecatch training to employees at approximately 500 bank branches, accounting for 25% of the state’s 1,925 branches.

In 2008’s 153 bank robberies, 12% (19) involved a firearm, 8% (12) were takeover style robberies, and 2 assaults occurred but did not result in injuries. 72% (110) of the robberies occurred in the Puget Sound area (Snohomish, King and Pierce counties), 50% (77) occurred in King County and 23% (35) occurred within the city of Seattle. 70% of robbers were white males, 20% black males, 2% Hispanic males, 7% other, 1% white females and 0.7% black females. The Seattle Division’s solution rate (bank robberies solved) was approximately 71%.

Nationally, in 2008, there were approximately 6,000* bank violations, with a total loss approaching $60,000,000*. Washington ranked 14 in total number of bank robberies by state.

For 2008, the Seattle Division saw a 51% decrease in the number of bank robberies from our decade average (1996 – 2006) of approximately 300.

* Numbers will rise slightly as stats are audited

The following is a County/City breakdown of 2008 bank robberies for the state of Washington:

COUNTY

CLALLAM 1

CLARK 15

COWLITZ 2

SKAGIT 4

JEFFERSON 1

KING 77

KITSAP 2

PIERCE 18

SPOKANE 3

SNOHOMISH 15

THURSTON 4

YAKIMA 2

(Not all counties reported)





CITY

AUBURN 4

BELLEVUE 7

BOTHELL 2

MARYSVILLE 1

EVERETT 6

FEDERAL W 4

KENT 5

KIRKLAND 3

LACEY 1

LYNNWOOD 4

OLYMPIA 2

SPOKANE 3
RENTON 4

SEATTLE 35

SHORELINE 3

TACOMA 10

TUKWILA 1

VANCOUVER 15

YAKIMA 2

(Not all cities reported)