Bend bank robberies averaging one every 90 days

Monday’s holdup at the northeast Bend branch of Columbia Bank did not catch many business owners in the area by surprise.

“We know what to do. Lock the doors,” said Kristy Sutterfield, a nail technician at nearby Images Salon.

Sutterfield knows the drill, because bank robberies in Bend happen regularly.

“On average, if you look at the last three years, it’s about one every three months,” Bend Police Lt. Clint Burleigh said Tuesday.

Since 2013, eight bank robberies happened in Bend. Five arrests have been made and three remain unsolved.

The so-called “Big Belly Bandit” robbed five banks between 2012 and 2013, the last one the Home Federal Bank in Dec 2013. He’s still on the loose and the investigation is ongoing.

Home Federal Bank was hit again by a Madras man in April 2014. In that same year, a man wrote a note demanding money at the Columbia Bank branch in Bend — the same one that was robbed on Monday.

The year 2015 was quiet, until December. First, a man held up a Selco Credit Union branch. He was caught less than 40 minutes later in front of a nearby bookstore, trying to use a newly bought Christmas tree to hide his face.

Just two days later, a 70-year old man went into the Wells Fargo branch on Third Street, demanding money. He held employees hostage, saying he had dynamite with him. After several hours, the man was arrested, and the device turned out to be a hoax.

How common are bank robberies in Bend and elsewhere?

According to data from the FBI, in 2014 there were close to 4,000 bank robberies nationwide. There were more bank holdups on the West Coast than on the East Coast.

In Oregon, there were 24 bank robberies; around 20 were in the Portland area and two in Bend. That means if you adjust for population, Bend had more bank robberies per capita that year than Portland.