Cops to Robbers: Shoot First and Leave No Prisoners

The strange world of law and order in Hungary has taken yet another bizarre twist following yesterday's failed bank robbery in Budapest's 11th District. According to police, a young man entered a branch of leading savings bank OTP Rt on Rétköz utcai near a large block of residential flats at 9:45 wearing a ski mask and brandishing a handgun. After shouting "bankrablás!" ("this is a bank robbery!") the culprit fired a shot into the air and demanded that the three bank employees on duty and the one customer present get on the floor. Hearing the gunshot, a security guard working at the bank entered the main hall and drew his own pistol. The guard demanded that the robber drop his weapon, the outlaw refused, the guard pumped him full of hot lead, and the bandit ended his manic Monday splayed out on a slab at the morgue (that's him in the pic - note the white tile in the background). All in all, a perfect example of community-based crime-fighting, save for one small wrinkle: prosecutors are now weighing charges against the first security guard to ever fight back against a member of Hungary's growing army of armed and audacious bank robbers.

A day after the botched robbery, details are still sketchy. According to today's Blikk, the gun used by the robber was an air pistol rather than a conventional sidearm. And while most media are reporting that the guard shot the bandit five times, the MTV cops how Kékfény (blue light) said that only four of the guard's rounds found their mark. The bandit, who appears to be in his early 20s, had been carrying no identification, and has not yet been ID'd by the police. An ambulance was called after the shooting, but the young criminal was apparently dead within minutes of hitting the floor.

Until yesterday morning, the area where the robbery took place was considered a peaceful one, and the guard, a 30-year-old ID'd only as Zsolt, was seen by many in the neighborhood as a peaceful soul known for reading books in the doorway of the bank branch. "We had talked about how the security guard wasn't so tough, and why OTP didn't employ someone bigger," the manager of a nearby bar told Blikk, adding that he had seen the dead bandit nervously pacing the street in the final minutes before the gunfight.

According to the company that employs the guard - which is run by former interior ministry Sándor Pintér - Zsolt had completed several training courses and psychological tests, all of which he had passed. Executives of the bank and of an association of security companies also defended the guard, saying his actions were appropriate given the situation, especially the fact that the robber had already discharged his weapon.

Despite this, police are still investigating whether it was appropriate for the guard to open fire, because of what seems to be an arcane distinction between "imminent" and "direct" threats. As one expert put it, the threat was clearly "imminent" but not necessarily as "direct" as if the robber had aimed his gun at the security guard after firing into the air.

This same expert stressed that the job of a bank security guard is to guard the lives of the people in the bank - as opposed to stopping robberies - and said that, following the notorious robbery in Mór, most security guards tend to analyze threats differently, which he said was regrettable.

In the Mór robbery, bandits robbing a branch of Austrian-owned Erste Bank in May, 2002 shot four employees, a security guard, two customers and an employee of an insurance company present in the bank at the time, killing six. It took two years for the police to charge anyone in the case.

While yesterday's shooting led to numerous comparisons to the Mór tragedy, others are pointing to another, lesser-known case. Last month in the small town of Őcsény in Tolna county, a 53-year old man robbed a bank using a plastic pistol, making off with several hundred thousands of forints. As the robber ran from the bank, a local 19-year-old tackled the bandit, and detained him until the police could arrive.

The outcome? As of this week, the robber had been freed, and the boy was being charged with causing the bandit unspecified injuries while tackling him. According to Tolna county police officials, they were obliged to start legal proceedings against the boy, even though he will likely be acquitted in the end.

So there you have it. The lesson to guards and would-be heroes? Hands off the bandits. And to the bandits? If you are going to rob a bank, pack a bit more firepower, and don't leave any witnesses.