the geezer bandit hands a note to the teller. and though the fbi won t discuss what it says, they will confirm that its content is extremely violent in nature. his notes have very specific threats. this is not a pathetic old man. this is a man who is using a gun, he is threatening, he is pointing at the victim tellers, and he s got very specific language that is violent language in his notes. it s not just give me all your money. this is a very violent crime, and it scares those tellers. many of them suffer traumatic issues over time because of this. watching the surveillance video, it seems incongruous that an old man is robbing banks. but according to special agent bodich, that may be the secret to his success. he is not coming in looking like a thug. some people have good situational awareness. some people don t. some people go in and they re in their own world.
they re not paying attention, they re on the cell phone, whatever they re doing. the geezer walks in, most people don t give him a second look because he appears to be very nonthreatening. he appears to be an older gentleman who is there to do his banking. he is quiet. he is surgical. he approaches one teller. he is in, he is out, and he moves on. those are the difficult ones to catch. there is also a possible twist speculation that the geezer bandit may not actually be a geezer at all, but a young man or woman wearing a mask. that is not uncommon for bank robbers at all. many of them wear masks. we ve had people dress up like women. they re actually men. and we ve had people wear halloween masks, et cetera. not unusual at all for a bank robber. do we believe that could be the case? it certainly could. we are considering all the possibilities. put it that way. the bandit may be old-school, but his fans are on the social media bandwagon.
threatening notes and language. but by robbery number 4, the geezer bandit decides he needs to step up his game. october 26th, 2009. surveillance video shows the geezer bandit walking into a bank in rancho santa fe, california. after heading to the counter, he hands the teller a note, and this time he also uses a gun. our theory, and i think it s a very strong one, is he wasn t getting a lot of money on the first three robberies. he realized that if he carried a firearm and threatened to use that firearm, and he was correct in doing so, that he would get more money in the takes. however, what he may or may not realize is that as soon as he took that gun inside the bank, he just increased his penalties under the federal sentencing guidelines and the state sentencing guidelines. but it s not just the threat of the gun that makes the geezer bandit so menacing. take a look at this surveillance footage from november 16th, 2009.
we like to name them as quickly as possible because it gets it in the public subconscious that oh, that s the drywall bandit or that s the geezer bandit or that s whatever. and it helps them remember so that ideally they are able to at some point generate some leads that will help us solve the case. the fbi is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the geezer bandit s arrest and conviction. after sitting for an interview, they asked us to help get some information out to the public. we can t catch him without the public s assistance. if someone is inside a bank or sees someone like this outside the bank, they need to call 911. they need to dial 911 immediately. if someone has a lead after the fact, they need to dial their local fbi office, whether it s san diego, los angeles, or wherever.
there are facebook pages supporting the geezer bandit. and if fans want to show off their loyalty, there are hats and mugs that read geezer bandit for president. even dogs can find their very own geezer bandit t-shirts. people will enter their entries on the facebook pages. one individual actually says to him on the facebook entries, god bless you. i have a hard time believing that god would smile on geezer bandit s actions. there is a backlash against many of the banks right now, and some people are actually seeing this guy as a kind of robin hood. robin hood he is not. at the end of the day, he walks into a bank with a gun. what happens if something goes wrong in there? someone could get killed because of his actions. the folk status may actually harm him. with the use of these surveillance videos and images, the fbi hopes all the exposure and even his nickname will make it easier for the public to identify him, and ultimately easier for them to catch him.