crime mapping case studies || ‘rolling the dice’: the arrest of roosevelt erving in lincoln,...

JWBK234-08 JWBK234-Chainey December 11, 2007 21:18

8 ‘Rolling the Dice’: the arrestof Roosevelt Erving in Lincoln,Nebraska

Tom Casady

8.1 Introduction

Geographical analysis enriches police decision-making in a variety of situations.

Among its uses is helping to design effective investigative strategies. The 14 January

2005 arrest of a serial bank robber in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA is an excellent example

of how good analysis augments good police work.

About 16:00 hours on 6 July 2000, a man wearing a blue bandana over his face

walked into a branch office of U.S. Bank, located at the end of a small neighbourhood

shopping area at 13th and Arapahoe Streets in Lincoln. A robbery was underway.

The suspect brandished a semi-automatic pistol, threatening the three employees

and demanding the cash drawer contents. He ran out the door with a bag filled with

$14,406. A witness in the parking lot saw the suspect run to a green Ford pickup truck

and drive away. This vehicle was found abandoned about six blocks away shortly

after the robbery: it had been stolen earlier in the day from the owner’s driveway.

Thus began a series of robberies that frustrated Lincoln police officers for the next

four years.

The series ultimately ended on the snowy morning of 14 January 2005. At 07:51

hours that morning, Officer Scott Arnold interrupted a robbery in progress at a

Wells Fargo Bank branch in east Lincoln. Shortly thereafter a 39-year old sus-

pect, Roosevelt Erving, was arrested for thirteen bank robberies that had netted

$445,203.

Crime Mapping Case Studies: Practice and Research Edited by Spencer Chainey and Lisa Tompson

© 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. ISBN: 978-0-470-51608-9


64 CRIME MAPPING CASE STUDIES: PRACTICE AND RESEARCH

8.2 Erving’s series of bank robberies

Bank robberies are comparatively rare in Lincoln, Nebraska’s second-largest city,

with a population of 241,000. Erving’s first robbery would be the sixth of nine bank

robberies to occur in the city in 2000. For the past ten years, the city has averaged just

six bank robberies each year, so 2000 stands out as a particularly high year. Erving’s

second robbery occurred four months later, on 4 November 2000 at another suburban

branch bank. The take was much smaller: $7,744. Six weeks later, he struck again,

returning to the U.S. Bank branch where he had started, and making off with almost

as much money. By the time of the third robbery, Lincoln police were certain that a

single suspect had committed all three. The modus operandi was clear, and remained

similar for the first seven robberies. Erving would steal a vehicle to use in his get

away, and abandon the vehicle nearby shortly after the robbery. In each case, Erving

brandished a pistol, covered his face with a bandana, and demanded cash from the

teller line. Unlike his first robbery, which was in the late afternoon, he committed

the next four in the middle of the day.

In his sixth robbery, on 19 June 2001, Erving discovered the vault. In this case,

after clearing the teller drawers, Erving ordered the two employees into the vault,

gathered more cash and forced them to lie on the floor. It was his biggest score to

date: $66,200. Erving was learning the ropes of becoming a better bank robber.

Robbery number nine was his biggest haul. At about 07:00 hours he abducted

an employee arriving for work in the parking lot at gunpoint, waited for a second

arriving employee, then forced both into the bank and into the vault. He again made

the employees lie on the vault floor. Erving left with $94,859, and had graduated to a

new and more lucrative method: the morning glory robbery. Hitting banks at opening

time is an old modus operandi, but Erving now had uncovered the peculiar effec-

tiveness that has made the morning glory robbery method popular. The remaining

five robberies of his career all followed this same pattern.

As Erving’s bank robbery career developed, the stakes raised considerably. As

his modus operandi developed and changed, he was not only making more money,

he was also terrorising employees much more. Rather than brandishing a pistol and

leaving quickly, he was abducting employees, staying longer, forcing them into other

parts of the bank (the vault) at gunpoint, and making them lie on the floor. At his

tenth robbery, on 20 January 2004, he tied the employees up.

It is hard to understand the terrorising effect the later robberies had on the em-

ployees without understanding the current events of the time. Nebraska, although

geographically large, has a population of only 1.7 million. It has a small media mar-

ket, dominated by a handful of daily newspapers, news radio stations and television

stations. In September 2002, a U.S. Bank branch in Norfolk, Nebraska had been

robbed. All the employees – five in total – had been executed by the robbers. These


‘ROLLING THE DICE’ 65

men had been captured, and the cases were proceeding during the ensuing two years.

This story was dominating Nebraska news across 500 miles. The victims of Erving

who were tied up and told to lie on the floor in the vault thought they would die.

The Lincoln Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been

working hard to identify the serial bank robber, and to make an arrest, but nothing

had panned out. Unlike many serial bank robbers, this suspect did not seem to be

surfacing in other cities. The efforts – although extensive – had resulted in very few

credible leads. One investigator, though, had made a cogent observation: Detective

Sergeant Jim Breen of the Lincoln Police Department had noted that the time period

between the robberies appeared to be loosely related to the amount of money the

suspect obtained at each.

8.3 Analysing Erving’s series

On Tuesday, 14 December 2004, the command staff of the Lincoln Police Department

held its regular weekly meeting. That morning, the group discussed the bank robbery

series. It had been six weeks since the last robbery, where the suspect had made

$44,000. At the meeting, the group decided that the department had to do something

more, and a decision was made to implement a stakeout project.

Stakeouts are an expensive gamble. The logistics are substantial, the cost – espe-

cially personnel costs – are high, and the chances of success are poor. Virtually all

experienced cops have burned the midnight oil on a stakeout at one time or another,

only to have the criminal commit another offence shortly after the stakeout ends. The

department, however, could not simply wait for the next robbery. Assistant Chief John

Becker was tasked with assembling the plan, and the project was dubbed ‘Rolling

the Dice’, a reference to the understanding that this was a low-percentage gamble.

Good analysis, however, was about to swing the odds in favour of the police.

One of the first steps in the analysis was to pick up on Detective Sergeant Breen’s

observation. Placing the robberies and amounts on a timeline, the analytical team

calculated the days between each robbery and the amount of money the suspect took.

The data confirmed that the suspect would be likely to strike again in the early part of

2005. The pattern, however, was not so consistent as to narrow the time period down

precisely. The police department could not afford to run this project very long –

the manpower needs and costs were going to be high in a lean budget year. It was

decided that eight days was the maximum the department could afford. Although

the financial analysis resulted in a rather broad time window during the first quarter

of the year, the planning team settled on the middle of January 2005 as the earliest

likely time period for the next robbery in the series.

In preparation for the project, a considerable amount of analysis was done to

identify the most likely targets. First, geographical analysis revealed that all of the



robberies had occurred in the southeast area of the city, with one exception. The

single exception was just a few blocks out of the southeast quadrant. Moreover,

the robberies had occurred close to the city’s edge. There were also distinctive

characteristics to the types of banks that were robbed. Erving had returned to the

same branch banks on three occasions, accounting for six of the 12 robberies. All

of the branch banks were small, freestanding branches with few employees. None

were located in buildings containing other offices. It was also fairly clear that after

the morning glory pattern emerged, Erving was casing the banks: he knew when the

employees would be arriving, what they would be driving and how many employees

would be opening.

Armed with this information, analysts produced maps of all Lincoln’s financial

institutions, highlighting approximately 35 branch banks that met the profile. The

stakeout detail of 30 officers and four FBI agents would cover 12 of these locations

with a two-person team, with a reserve force of SWAT Team members ready to

respond in the event of an actual robbery. Mapping revealed that a stakeout team

could effectively cover multiple branch banks at certain locations. The remaining

likely targets would be immunised in one of two ways: either by parking empty

marked police patrol cars nearby in the days preceding the stakeout, or by directing

the on duty officers in marked units to patrol the approaches to that bank during the

opening time period from about 07:00 to 8:30 hours on those days. The plan was to

funnel the robber to a small number of potential targets.

Analysts had also examined potential escape routes from the southeast quadrant

of the city. Since the prevailing theory was that the robber was coming to Lincoln

from outside the city, the team made arrangements for potential exit roadways to

be kept under surveillance by surrounding law enforcement agencies, including

the Nebraska State Patrol and the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies and

troopers would be stationed at key locations to observe outbound traffic in the event

that a suspect vehicle description materialised.

8.4 Project ‘Rolling the Dice’

The project was set to begin on 14 January 2005. This was a Friday before a three day

weekend, with the Martin Luther King Day national holiday on Monday 17 January.

The team felt that a three-day holiday weekend might be a time when the robber was

anxious to stock up on cash if he was using the proceeds to fund gambling, drugs or

other leisure activities.

The first day of the stakeout project began with a 04:00 hours briefing in the

assembly room at police headquarters. The entire team was brought up to speed, the

plan reviewed and the specific assignments made. The detail was to deploy and be

operational at 06:00 hours.


‘ROLLING THE DICE’ 67

Detective Sergeant Dennis Duckworth was tasked with staffing the command

post for the project, located in the city’s emergency operations centre. Sergeant

Duckworth had prepared a dry-erase board to record times and remarks concerning

key events. Entry number one, at the top of the board was: ‘0400: Briefing at HQ’.

Entry number two was: ‘0600: All units in post’. At 07:51 hours, 31-year veteran

patrol officer Scott Arnold was driving his marked patrol car through the parking lot

of a Wells Fargo branch bank at 66th and O Street. Officer Arnold was one of the

‘vaccinators’ – watching closely a few branches on his beat that were not covered

by the stakeout teams. He noticed something peculiar; the bank’s drive through lane

was not yet open despite the employee’s cars in the lot and an expected 07:30 hours

opening time. Further observations caused him to suspect that a bank robbery was

in progress. He summoned assistance to set up a perimeter.

He was right. Roosevelt Erving had arrived at the bank shortly before opening

time, and abducted a teller arriving for work. He was armed with a Glock 9 mm

semi-automatic pistol. He had taken her inside at gunpoint, and waited for the second

employee to arrive. Both employees had been restrained to chairs using cable ties.

Officer Arnold had indeed interrupted a robbery in progress, and broke the radio

silence that had been part of the detail. Erving, however, saw the patrol car, and

quickly realised that the police had discovered the robbery. In an effort to avoid

the perimeter officers that were arriving on the north, he threw a chair through a

south-facing window on a side of the building with no exits. Officer Arnold spotted

him, and gave chase on foot.

Erving crossed O Street, Lincoln’s busiest seven-lane street. The pursuit went

through the parking lot of a restaurant on the southwest corner of 66th and O Streets,

where coincidentally, Michael Heavican, the United States Attorney for the District

of Nebraska, Paul LaCotti, Special Agent in Charge of the Nebraska FBI office, and

Colonel Tom Nesbitt, the Superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol, were having

breakfast.

The pursuit continued between buildings, through the parking lot of a retirement

home, and then between houses into a residential neighbourhood. As the events had

unfolded, Sergeant Ken Koziol a 30-year veteran, had left his position on the stakeout

team at a Union Bank branch nearby, and made his way into the neighbourhood south

of the chase. He spotted Erving, with Officer Arnold following, and took up a position

to intercept. As Erving went up the walkway of a residence, Sergeant Koziol came

around the corner, shotgun in hand and confronted Erving. Officer Arnold arrived,

and handcuffed the suspect.

Entries number three and four on Sergeant Duckworth’s log: ‘0751: Robbery in

progress; 0807: Suspect in custody’.

Erving had discarded his pistol during the foot pursuit, and it was recovered a few

days later, as the snow was melting. It turned out that he was a local – he lived in



the southeast part of Lincoln, and had committed the robberies after getting off his

night shift job. Erving had purchased a home and several vehicles with the proceeds

of his crime spree. In December 2005 he was convicted in Federal court to thirteen

counts of bank robbery, and is presently serving a 40-year sentence.

8.5 The crucial role of geographical analysis

There can be little doubt that a good deal of luck was involved in the arrest of

Roosevelt Erving. It is also undeniable, however, that good analysis played a crucial

role. Crime mapping helped determine Erving’s modus operandi, helped locate his

potential victim banks, helped determine the best locations for stakeout and helped

identify the likely escape routes. The case is illustrative of the nexus of the art and

science of policing: the creativity, initiative and intuition of experienced police offi-

cers informed by geographical crime analysis and traditional investigative analysis.

The combination certainly created one of the most memorable moments for two

veteran police officers who rolled the dice and hit the jackpot.

crime mapping case studies || ‘rolling the dice’: the arrest of roosevelt erving in lincoln,...

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