January 7, 2005 - “He wasn’t wearing his fishing hat this time, but I was pretty sure it was the same guy who robbed us last summer,” said Dean Wickstrom, President of REAL Financial Center®.

 The ‘Fishing Hat Bandit’, – responsible for 23 robberies at financial institutions in or around the Twin Cities in the past 18 months – hit REAL Financial January 7 for the second time this year.

Only this time, things turned out differently. Wickstrom had prepared for another robbery attempt. He had studied security tapes. He’d been briefed on the robber’s probable escape route by Steve Byrnes, Marketing Manager at REAL Financial, who had followed the bandit out of the office during last summer’s robbery.

So when Wickstrom saw the hooded figure heading toward the teller window, he came out of his office, watched the bandit scoop up the cash and make a dash for the door. Wickstrom followed him out the door – at a safe distance – and watched the bandit duck into a nearby garage while calling 911 on his cell phone. He waited near the garage until police arrived to make sure the bandit didn’t flee.

Police were on site in minutes, surrounding the garage. The bandit failed to surrender, so SWAT teams pulled the car in which he was hiding out of the garage, then forcibly removed the suspect from the vehicle. He had been hiding in the trunk with a large amount of cash.

“We’re proud to have been a part of this effort to bring the predator to justice,” said Wickstrom. “And I’m also very proud of the way our staff here at REAL Financial handled a potentially dangerous situation. They were very professional, very cool at an extremely stressful moment. Our preparedness paid off. And our people were really on the ball.”

Did You Know?
Your deposits are fully insured up to $250,000. This deposit insurance protection is provided by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), an independent agency of the United States Government. For more information, visit www.ncua.gov.