Officials Probe Bizarre Pa. Bank Robbery (BOMB strapped to body!))

ERIE, Pa. - A pizza delivery man told police he had been forced to rob a bank and asked authorities to help him minutes before a bomb strapped to his chest exploded and killed him.
 
On Saturday, federal agents and police in northwestern Pennsylvania were trying to solve the bizarre case of 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells, who left to deliver a pizza to a mysterious address in a remote area about an hour before he turned up at the bank with a bomb strapped to his body.
No one else was hurt in Thursday's explosion, which happened in front of law enforcement officers as they waited for a bomb squad to arrive.
WJET-TV of Erie captured audio and video from Wells as he sat handcuffed in front of a state police cruiser. "Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he asked.

more at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20030831/ap_on_re_us/bank_robbery_explosion

YIKES! Not many details on this, but it is disturbing. Said to be a sophisticated device; victim is said to be trustworthy. WTF? Who would do such a thing like this? Have you ever heard of anything like this???

Yikes!

This is sick plus.

and barbaric! That is one of the most senseless things I've heard in a long time. It's really hard to understand anyone who would value money over a human life. Poor guy!

I guess a news crew was on the scene and filmed the situation as it unfolded, with the police. The guy was sitting there on the ground, next to a squad car, screaming for someone to help him, but the bomb squad was late to arrive.

I am really reeling over this story. What the hell is going on here?

x

"I've never heard of a bank robbery in which the bomb was actually real and went off, or one in which there was bomb-coercion situation," said Brooke Blake, a former FBI agent who now teaches bank employees to deal with robberies, identity theft, extortion and workplace violence.
Though robbers may claim to have guns, they rarely carry weapons and even less frequently use them, especially bombs, said Blake, who now runs Bank Security Network.
-snip-
The United States has had 4,079 robberies so far this year, according to statistics from the FBI's national headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 169 of those cases, or 4.1 percent of the total, the robber threatened to use or used an explosive device. Previous years show similar statistics.
The FBI does not keep statistics on robberies by coercion.
"Nothing like that has ever happened before in my 30 years of experience in the security field," said Barbara Hurst, who writes about security issues for www.bankersonline.com and is editor of Bankers Hotline. "Ninety-nine out of 100 bomb threats are false. And I've never heard of coercion before."
http://www.goerie.com/

This thing is so bizzare and so sad.

Let's not dwell on this horror. Remember, your President has said that the world is a much safer place since Saddam was overthrown. Think on these things and love Big Brother.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2032740/detail.html

This is how it ended:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2035436/detail.html

YIKES. Apparently in the area around Lake Erie, these sorts of things are quite common -- and we elsewhere never hear about them because they are so bored with this stuff there that they don't think its worth mentioning. /sarcasm off

Thank you very much for providing this fascinating story.

Thanks for the lastest link.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

have they determined who put the bomb on his neck?

Most recent reports only say that the FBI is still gathering the details and following leads that have come in, and that they feel the investigation is progressing well.

Erie FBI Special Agent Bob Rudge said investigators are confident they will soon solve the mystery behind the bizarre bombing death of Brian Wells. Remnants of the bomb that killed Wells Thursday afternoon on upper Peach Street were flown out of Erie Saturday to the FBI lab in Quantico, W. Va.

"We don't know yet as to why the bomb detonated or how it detonated," Rudge said. "That will be the focus when we get the forensics back from Quantico."

Rudge did not say when results of those tests would be available. Results from an autopsy performed Friday on Wells were not available Saturday. Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook was out of town Saturday and could not be reached for comment.

For those traumatized by the incident, the American Red Cross has assembled its Disaster Mental Health team in the vicinity of the bombing.

http://goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030831/FRONTPAGE/108310359

from Tennessee, I believe, where a bank official and his wife were held hostage in their home, under threat of violence and the official was then sent to rob a bank (or take money out under the guise of his official role). Somehow the plan got thwarted and it turned out there were several "masterminds" behind the plot and that they had either been planning this type of robbery for a while or had even attempted it before? Bombs may have been involved as well. This story rings eerily similar to that.

It's a shit and deeply hypocritical film (IMHO), but it's relevant here because a very similar event happens in it.

John Travolta's character straps bombs to hostages in a bank raid, and when one of the hostages leaves the bank the device goes off, killing them and a whole street full of cops and other people.

I'm just wondering whether Swordfish was based on real events or whether robbers are taking their cues from Hollywood...

P.

P.S.
It's a hypocritical film because it philosophises about the evils of violence and yet relies entirely for its appeal on huge explosions and gruesome deaths. It sets itself up with an agenda, and then ignores it and descends into a very low-brow action flick.

The similarity is too great not to put the two together.

:evilgrin:

Yes, I was surprised too.

P.

Police: Co-worker of man killed in bank robbery blast dies at home

ERIE, Pa. (AP) - A friend and co-worker of a pizza deliveryman killed when a bomb on his chest exploded after a bank robbery died at home Sunday, but there was no obvious connection between the deaths, police said.

..."There was nothing overtly obvious as to the cause of his death," Zaleski said, "but because there's a relationship between the two individuals, we are over there."

Police received a 911 call for medical assistance around 5 a.m. at the home, where the man lived with his parents, but he refused medical assistance, Zaleski said. A few hours later, authorities were called again after his parents found him unresponsive, and he was pronounced dead at the home at about 9:45 a.m., Zaleski said.

Well, who made the 911 call--him or the parents? Is this some terrible coincidence, a robbery gone bad, suicide, or a suicide pact?


rocknation

Homeland Security himself.

Two buddies die mysterious deaths in Erie. Any chance these two were more than buddies?? Maybe a little hate crime here.

Most of these "human bomb" cases have been reported in South America. The last one that I read about was in Columbia and involved a bomb wired to a necklace which was placed around the neck of a anti-guerilla journalist. She died.

Sick...

JB

A new Rove PsyOps Weapon of Mass Distraction as the 2004 s-election approaches.
:)-Lori

I have often suspected that the so-called "suicide bombers" in the middle east are not acting upon their own will, but possibly brainwashed or otherwise coerced into their fatal actions.

MK-Ultra and other such brainwashing techniques used by the CIA, Mossad and other so called "intelligence" agencies are well documented, and the presence of the suicide bombers has definitely helped Sharon make his case in Israel. Could PNAC be planning on using the same plan here, possibly to push the passage of Asscrotch's "Victory Act"?

that a person would willingly be a suicide bomber, or that someone is brainwashing them to do it. Either scenario is sick.

I remember the IRA doing this in the 80's.

They had a tactic of breaking into the home of a protestant family and telling the father to drive a car bomb to a police station or they would kill his wife and children.

Not much of a choice for the father.

before the bomb went off. Not that it makes it any less reprehensible.

Welcome to DU and good Logon name! Reassuringly expensive!

:hi:

P.