Cops Crack Down on Smash-and-Grab Crimes
Thieves who crash into stores to steal ATMs are encountering tougher defenses.
May 27, 2009 -- In the old West, bank robberies followed a certain script. The bad guys had a gun and got away with the cash, and the good guys were always in hot pursuit.
But in the new West, criminals have strayed from the script. The modern revision? They are targeting tiny banks, which have all of the cash but no teller and, too often, no security except for a small camera.
Watch the full story TONIGHT on "Nightline" at 11:35 p.m. ET.
In Dallas last year, it seemed to police as if someone was constantly trying to rip off an ATM. It was happening nearly every night.
"At the time, ATMs were pretty easy targets for them to get with not a lot of risk of being caught," said Lt. Todd Thomasson of the Dallas Police Department. "Just an easy target with a low-risk, high-reward payoff."
In each case the crime is roughly the same. Crooks use a truck, usually stolen, to smash through the front of a gas station. They load the ATM -- and they're gone. Sometimes, they wrap the ATM with a chain and drag it out of the store. Thieves have even stolen construction equipment to scoop up ATMs outside of banks.
It is a scene repeated all across the country. In Lake Charles, La., thieves drove through the front door of a Target store. At first, they couldn't get their chain around the machine. When they finally did, they proceeded to rip the machine in half. In the end they did manage to get away with the good stuff. In Mobile, Ala., when a van came through the front of a Walgreens, the two crooks struggled with the ATM a bit but eventually managed to get it inside the van.
It's relatively easy money -- or at least it was.
What a difference a year makes. So far in Dallas in 2009, there have been only five successful ATM heists. What changed? For starters, police here formed an ATM task force that put dozens behind bars.
"They started seeing cops everywhere they went ... and they got the message," said Thomasson.
So did the stores. They started moving ATMs away from the front door, and started bolting them to the ground or to the wall. The result was a series of criminal missteps, usually caught on tape.
