When Jonny Depp and Co. stopped in Madison last spring to film parts of “Public Enemies,” a movie about the FBI’s pursuit of bank robbers John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, it was hard not to lament the days when renegade men stormed across the Midwest looting and causing chaos. They were bad guys, but they were good stories, and they’re stories that are largely lost in these hyper-technologic days. You can still rob a bank if you want, but amidst in-store cameras, police helicopters and tracking technology, the chances of you getting to spend most of that money on Snuggies are low. Oscar Wilde once said that “life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” and so the city of
While Dillinger fancied knocking over banks, the Parka Bandit played things a little more low-key: Walk into a gas station, say you’ve got a gun, take the money and leave unnoticed by the police (leaving a gas station unnoticed by the fuzz, how novel — take notes, PJ). In addition to his gas station robberies, police also linked the Bandit to hold-ups at a restaurant and a tanning salon, yet he remained at large for over a month.
It’s all over now for our hooded villain, who was apprehended on Sunday — and it’s likely for the best as it’s difficult to keep up the parka shtick with spring setting in — but it was a magical run. Interestingly, for all that time he spent as a wanted man, you didn’t hear many people complaining the police haven’t caught him. Maybe we didn’t know, maybe we didn’t care or maybe the Parka Bandit was just what we needed.
This is, of course, not true. We didn’t need the Parka Bandit. I guess we needed him behind bars, but beyond that, he was about as necessary as an appendix or “Godfather III.” Robbing gas stations and restaurants is not only stupid, it’s incredibly dangerous, and if he’d kept it up, I would’ve needed to cut 44 oz. sodas of out my diet completely. But perhaps we could use another John Dillinger, a man who in many ways was seen as an American Robin Hood during a time of unparalleled turmoil in this country.
Much like Dillinger’s 1930s, we find ourselves in a new era where the economy is sunk and the banking industry is about as credible as an Anne Coulter book. During the Great Depression, it was easy to root for the criminal who just robbed the bank that foreclosed on your family’s farm. Had we known about Buddhists back then, we’d have called it karma. Today, however, we have no one to root for, no modern Robin Hood. Some of us thought the government had the people’s interests in mind, but then we found out about the AIG bonuses and how legislation was written to preserve them. I don’t doubt the Obama administration is mighty POed by the actions of those executives, but it’s hard to wag a finger and write billion-dollar checks at the same time.
I’d like to say that I’m in no way condoning someone walking into AIG headquarters and sneaking out with a bag full of money, but if my criminal record weren’t on the line, I’d probably do it. For one, college is expensive, but even more, this is an issue of accountability, and despite grave missteps by both Wall Street and the government, it’s the everyday American taking the brunt of the blow. Justice may be blind, but it shouldn’t be ignorant.
The Parka Bandit was a criminal, but he was always running on borrowed time, and now he’ll be paying it back with interest. Gas station robberies are terrifying, but we have pretty solid laws to handle that kind of thing, and I doubt he’ll get to walk into a Super America anytime soon. But if there’s one robbery that should really send shivers down your spine, it’s the one between the public and these so-called necessary institutions we decided to bail out, prop up and pay bonuses to. Our laws aren’t as clear on how to fix this one.
So, no, don’t go out and rob a bank. But pray someone else does. That sounds pretty American to me.
Sean Kittridge ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.
