NEW YORK BANDITS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11762, 24 February 1919, Page 7

NEW YORK BANDITS.

BURGLARY AT BANK. THE TELLER SHOT DEAD. Brooklyn, New York,, was the other day, a scene of one of the boldest bank robberies in its history Coming, as it did, three days after the police bad boasted of capturing the “most 'dangerous gang of thugs” ever at large in New York, the robbery ha? excited much moment. It was the belief of the police that in the 10 men they had arrested earlier in the week they had found the perpetrators of an alarming series of daylight acts of banditry which recently spread a feeling of Insecurity over the sets side of New York. Yet, with these men safe under lock {and key, the East Brooklyn Savings Bank, situated in a crowded section of the borough, was robbed of two bags of money; Its paying teller, Mr De Witt C. Peal, was shot dead, and its assistant treasurer, Mr William Coombs, was mortally wounded. After shooting the two officials the bandits, ignoring the screams of a woman clerk, calmly collected toe booty, estimated at between £2OOO and £3OOO. They then left the hank, and holding the bags of money in one hand and their revolvers in the other walked through excited crowds'and sprang into a taxicab through the rear window, from which they fired several shots at a pursuing motor-car which had been commandeered by the treasurer of the bank. The treasurer’s car speedily broke down, and at the corner of Hamburg and Park Avenues the taixcab also stopped. The robbers actually paid the chaffeur who was placed under arrest. The novel explanation is given of the apathy §of the crowds who saw the robbery, without making any attempt to interfere,, that they believed that the bandits were engaged in staging a picture film.