HOLD-UP OF BANK

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3449, 24 November 1932, Page 6

HOLD-UP OF BANK

ROBBERS FLEE WITH £2400. Four gunmen burst into the Public National Bank and Trust Company's branch at 275 East 169th Street, the Bronx, New York, and fired three shots into the air. Then, shouting that they meant to kill if opposed, they hurdled a counter, scooped up £2400 to £2BOO, and escaped in an automobile, leaving seven employees, including two women, in a nervous fright. When the alarm siren was connected and made to work, after much trouble, the police arrived in a half dozen radio cars, in pursuit automobiles and in an emergency truck long after the bandits were gone. A Negro was almost bowled over by the automobile containing the robbers as it swung northward into Sheridan Avenue. However, he did not notice the license number of the car. The bank is about 100 feet from the intersection of Morris Avenue, a busy corner. Across the street is a string of stores. Many shoppers were passing as the hold-up was taking place. Inside the bank the manager, Joseph A. Adams, and his assistant, David Frieze, were getting ready for the usual Saturday noon rush. The money, which had just been taken from the valut, was placed before them on a desk. Joseph Levy, the floor man, was busy at the vault in the rear. The other employees were in their proper places. The four gunmen, leaving a fifth man at the wheel of their automobile a short distance from the door of the bank building, walked across the sidewalk in a manner that attracted no attention. When they got inside the bank, though, they quickly changed their demeanour.

"Get back against the walls or you'll get shot" the hold-up men cried as they fired the three shots to scare the bank employees. One robber swung a leg over the four-foot marble counter of the foreign department, dropped inside and, after a brief fumbling with the latch of a grilled iron gate, he was in a money cage, his pistol pointingtoward the employees. More guns were stuck through the tellers' windows on both sides of the bank, while the money was seized.