Friday, February 19, 2010

I'm in hot pursuit!

I’ve done some pretty stupid stuff in my life. This ranks right up there.

As many of you know I’m the president of a local bank. I’ve been in banking for over 30 years. In that time I’ve been involved in eighteen bank robberies. There have been some scary ones but most of the time the suspects are in and out before anyone other than the bank teller that was robbed even knows what happened.

What we tell our employees in the event of a robbery is to follow our normal security procedures, remain calm and always cooperate with the bank robbers so hopefully no one gets hurt.

Under no circumstances are you to chase after the bank robbers.

Ever.

I repeat.

Ever.

Yesterday we were robbed.

I won’t go into the particulars of the robbery. I will only say that at some point my bank manager yelled that we’ve been robbed.

Now I’m a little different than most bank presidents. I don’t have my office upstairs where my staff and customers can’t see me. My office is the very first office you see when you enter the bank and it is closest to the door.

I don’t know what possessed me to chase after the bank robbers. Well I kind of know. A good friend and the husband of one of my employees, Donald, happened to be in his wife’s office when we were robbed. He decided to chase the robbers and I decided to chase him.

Now this was not exactly a high speed pursuit.

The bank robbers, two of them, walked…… I repeat…… walked up the street.

My friend Donald was walking behind them and I was walking behind Donald. Donald was about twenty feet behind them and I was about 20 feet behind Donald because I had the good sense at least to run back to my office and get my cell phone.
So as our little parade is heading up the street and I’m on the phone with 911 trying to explain to them that we are in hot pursuit of two robbery suspects.

On foot.

About two blocks from the bank the robbers stopped turned and looked right at us. Donald being closest, but way too thin to cover me if they started shooting stops and folds his arms and stares right back at them.

This was a very surreal moment. In my mind I’m thinking, “BOB AND WEAVE, BOB AND WEAVE, SERPENTINE, SERPENTINE, SIDE TO SIDE, SIDE TO SIDE!!!!!!! But in reality I was calmly telling the police dispatcher on the phone what was happening like I was some kind of on the spot news reporter.

“The suspects have stopped and turned and are facing us. The one with the back pack is now setting it down. They are now walking away from the backpack. They are walking away from the pack back. We are in pursuit.” (I have seen way too many cop programs.)

And here is where I officially turned into a complete idiot. When they dropped the backpack we followed and Donald picked it up. At that moment I was thinking if the cops show up now Donald looks like one of the robbers. So I told the 911 operator…..

“THE GOOD GUYS HAVE THE BACKPACK!!!!!! THE GOOD GUYS HAVE THE BACKPACK!!!!!!”

You don’t realize how stupid you can sound until you have one of those moments.

“THE GOOD GUYS HAVE THE BACKPACK!!!!!! THE GOOD GUYS HAVE THE BACKPACK!!!!!!”

I swear the 911 operator laughed.

I won’t go into the rest of the details other than to say about 20 cops showed up, cornered the “suspects” and arrested them.

The rest of the day was spent with the police and FBI retelling the same story over and over again so I could relive my stupidity.

When I got home my wife was not pleased. My staff had ratted me out to her.

“What the hell were you thinking?

“I was….”

“You’re an idiot. What if they had been armed?”

“Um… Donald started it.”

“If Donald ran out into traffic would you run into traffic? These were bank robbers for Christ’s sake. You know better Calabrese.”

“I used my cat like reflexes to……”

“THIS IS NOT A JOKE!”

“You know the robbers were way less tense than you are right now.”

That’s when she punched me.

Then she hugged me.

Then she laughed and followed her laughter with…….

“THE GOOD GUYS HAVE THE BACKPACK!!!!!! THE GOOD GUYS HAVE THE BACKPACK!!!!!!”

I will never live this down.