Training bank tellers to be ready for a robbery

Story Created:
Jan 26, 2010 at 10:13 PM EST

Story Updated:
Jan 26, 2010 at 10:13 PM EST

FORT MYERS, Fla. – A Lee County bank is held up in broad daylight on Tuesday morning, and the scary confrontation between an armed suspect and tellers was caught on tape.

Authorities say bank employees are trained yearly to know what to do in case of a robbery.

In this case, a masked gunman pointed his weapon right in the face of a bank teller at the SunTrust Bank on Palm Beach Boulevard in Fort Myers Shores.

“If a robbery takes place, we train them what to do to keep themselves safe and keep their customers safe,” said Florida Crime Prevention Specialist Larry Gutridge.

It’s Gutridge’s job to make sure bank employees like these know how to handle such a tense moment through training sessions requested by banks.

In Tuesday morning’s SunTrust robbery, tellers followed the demands, and the two masked suspects got away with cash.

“The one thing that we teach is, don’t get involved,” Gutridge said. “We don’t want you to try to do that, that’s the job of the sheriff’s office to get involved with the individuals, to confront the individuals.”

Ultimately, nobody inside the bank was physically harmed, the goal in any robbery situation.

“Please don’t try to be a hero. We’ve already got one crime to deal with, let’s not expand it,” Gutridge said. “Money is money, it can be replaced, but the people. We only get one of them. We need to keep them safe.”

What training the bank employees had in Tuesday case isn’t known.

Anyone with information on Tuesday’s SunTrust robbery is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-780-TIPS.