Bank Robbing 101

There are certain things that are a given when one decides to rob a bank. First, that the bank is located far enough from the police station to allow enough time for a getaway. And second, that the aforementioned bank isn’t located directly across the street from one’s residence. Lastly, prospective robbers should have a good plan in place for making an escape; primarily one that doesn’t involve relying on Capitaland Taxi as the getaway car.

Mike Suprenant obviously didn’t think these basic steps through before entering Saratoga National on South Broadway Thursday afternoon with a “poorly spelled note” demanding money from the teller, according to The Saratogian. Despite what sounds like a half-assed attempt at a robbery, the 49-year-old man made off with more than $12,000 and managed to escape from the bank before police –located less than a mile away –could arrive on the scene.

Update: For all his genius bank robbing skill, the 50-year-old Suprenant was handed a 10-year prison sentence and five years on probation, meaning he’ll be collecting social security the next time he’s free to roam the globe unabated by the law. And to think, he didn’t even get a good rollick with the crack whores Schenectady is renowned for.

But Suprenant didn’t stop his bungling there. Instead of fleeing town like most sensible robbers would, he sauntered back over to his trailer –located directly behind the shopping plaza across the street from the bank –changed out of his clothes, and then walked back toward the vicinity of the bank to catch a cab to Schenectady. In his trailer, he left his robbery clothes, roughly a two-thirds of the stolen cash AND the hastily written sign he used to commit the heist in the first place.

Let’s pause from the story for some analysis. Even with all this bungling, Suprenant managed to escape the bank, the confines of his surrounded apartment and the dragnet of cops that were rapidly clamping down on every exit of the city. Not bad for the fellow, all things considered, especially seeing as though the cops were on scene in less than two minutes.

So how did they finally spot him? Well, here’s a word-from-the-wise for any prospective half-baked bank robber: it’s pretty conspicuous to be walking by the scene of a bank robbery with more than $3,000 wadded up in your front pockets. It’s especially conspicuous if the cash still has the wrappers from the bank that was just robbed. In short, it’s a dead giveaway.

Still, Spa City Police Chief Ed Moore felt the need to pat his boys on the back in the case, even though the robber quite literally stumbled into them, leaving a trail of evidence that even one of the middle school’s junior detectives could have tracked.

“It was good police work,” he told The Saratogian.

Good police work? Heaven forbid the city is every shown an example of bad police work. Of course, some would argue there’s already been a glaring case of that nearly five years ago just blocks north of the robbery. While the trail for Kevin Arkenau’s killer has long since grown cold, there are some out there who seem to have a fairly good idea of what happened that December day in 2002.

Yet the city police don’t and never did have a firm idea of what happened that evening. Or at least not one that has lead to a conviction in the Spa City’s only unsolved murder in the past decade. One year after the shooting, Moore seemed convinced there would be an arrest, which would indeed be deserving of the “good police work” statement he tossed out to the press Thursday.

Well, it’s almost four years after he made that statement and still, no arrests. Then again, it’s a lot easier to give high-fives for arresting a seemingly insane robber than it is to track down an interstate drug cartel that deftly murdered a man in cold blood just a block away from the police station.