Surgical Mask Bandit

[RedRoseSpiral]

Cancer patient in surgical mask mistaken as bank robber

Evidently, this bank teller was quite a bit zealous in their actions. The guy did nothing threatening (wearing a surgical mask regardless of what someone else has done is not threatening) and the cops shouldn't have been called. I really hope this guy gets a the very least an official apology. Having to go through a pat down and your stuff searched by the police is bad enough. Put that on top of just going through a round of chemo is just horrible.

[Gravekeeper]

I going to have to disagree. If there's been armed robberies in the area by a suspect, and someone walks into your bank that looks exactly like said suspect, I don't think its overzealous to be alarmed. Its rare to see someone wearing a surgical mask and I would bet money the average person isn't even aware a chemo patient would wear a surgical mask.

I sure as heck didn't know that and I imagine unless you had personal experience with it in your family or circle of friends you likely wouldn't know either.

Yeah, it sucks that it happened to the poor guy, but if you've been told some dude in a surgical mask is knocking off banks in your area and in walks some dude with a surgical mask on. Well, yeah. You're going to be alarmed and you may even have been instructed by your boss to call the cops if you saw the guy.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I'm of mixed feelings on this.

On one hand Gravekeeper has a point. It is an honest response to seeing a masked individual in a bank after a series of robberies in the area. Especially with the same MO.

But on the other hand...the article states that he came up to the teller window to make the transaction. Now Banks here in the US normally require you to come to the window with your account information and some form of ID to indicate that you are the account holder (or at least one of the people on the account). How hard would it have been to look at the ID and say "Can you pull your mask down for a second so I can verify your identity?"

If the teller had done that and the face matches the ID and the ID matches the account...odds are it's not the "Surgical Mask Robber" and is instead someone with a mask for health reasons wanting his or her hard earned money from the bank that holds it.

In the end though I don't see this as being that much of a problem or even that newsworthy. The police in the article are shown to have done their job the way they're supposed to do it. Secure the suspect, verify the identity, bring in for processing if suspect is the target of investigation or release if not.

And they apologised for detaining him.

I think someone was having a slow news day.

[Greenday]

It sucks, but I don't see any wrongdoing by the police or the bank teller. He matched the description of someone who had recently robbed multiple local banks. It's a rare enough outfit that tripping the alarm and having the police come immediately is a pretty fair response.

[Andara Bledin]

This is another one of those "nobody wins" situations.

Although, the bank has publicly apologized and offered a $5000 donation in his name to the charity of his choice.