Extraordinarily brave or extraordinarily stupid? There’s often a fine line separating the two. At 2:30 this afternoon, a man blurred that line when he robbed the Mechanics and Farmers bank right next to my office.
The M&F bank is tiny place, so small its almost two-dimensional. What it lacks in size it makes up in location, though: it sits right across the street from the Raleigh Times. The Times is a place where patrons fill outside tables all morning and afternoon. There were guaranteed to be a handful of witnesses who could’ve seen the guy. Not only that, but top brass from the Raleigh Police visit so often that its practically a police substation. Cops could’ve been at that bank in ten seconds.
I walked by the bank around 1:30 after meeting the family for lunch at the new Roly Poly. As I passed, a bank employee was on the sidewalk, cellphone to her ear, scolded a couple for parking in the bank parking lot.
The bank is so close it literally shares a wall with my office. I can’t see it from my window, though. Can’t see the sidewalk outside my building either without moving to the window. And though I had my scanner with me I didn’t listen to it all day. Don’t know what good it would’ve done if I’d had.
Ah well. That’s life in the big city, eh?