Heist
Even as a kid Luke Elliott Sommer showed a talent for leadership. And by the time he finished U.S. Army Ranger School his mind had become a precision weapon capable of planning strategic attacks on buildings in enemy territory. Then he came home.
Nineteen-year-old Jessicah Stotts woke up long before her alarm clock blared on Monday morning. Lying in bed in her parents’ Puyallup home, she mulled her choices: sleep in or get to work early. She loved working at Bank of America. Since taking the job in April—her first “big girl job”—she’d grown to love her coworkers, her bosses, and even her customers, many of whom she knew on a first-name basis. Four months into the job she was already handling merchant accounts and big cash deposits from nearby businesses, and was poised to become a senior teller.
Why not go in early, she thought lying in bed, and get my drawer in order before the bank opens? In no time she was up and out the door—didn’t even take the extra time to flat-iron her curly brown hair, as she usually did. She rolled down Route 512 for the 15-mile drive to the bank. Then, Starbucks in hand, she took her spot at teller window number five and counted out the cash for her shift.
Sommer, Palmer, Robertson, and Dunmall loaded the trunk of Blum’s Audi with the weapons, armor, gloves, and masks. The five men crammed into the car. Once they cleared the base Robertson, sitting in the back, turned around and dragged the equipment out of the trunk via the pull-forward seat. They crawled into their body armor and pulled on sweatshirts to cover it. Gloves on, Robertson distributed the weapons: The two AK-47s for Palmer and Dunmall, a Glock 9-millimeter with a laser scope for Sommer, and a Springfield 9-millimeter for himself. Dunmall slung a bag filled with several hundred rounds of AK-47 ammunition over his shoulder.
Blum weaved the silver car through rush-hour traffic, up South Puget Sound Avenue, and into the alley. The men spilled out of the car, pulling on masks as they ripped toward the bank at a full sprint. A black truck turned down the alleyway. Sommer thought quick: Distract the driver. He jumped onto the truck hood, looked the driver right in the eyes, and rolled off. The truck, Sommer recalls, jerked into reverse, “tires screeching.”
Bolting toward the bank, Sommer spotted another potential witness. “This really, really sweet old lady and her husband are sitting in the ATM drive-through, going through the fucking ATM drive-through, right, and I waved to them while I’m running in the door and the lady gives me this weird look and waves back. Okay, so that was like ridiculous. So I run inside.”
Nathan Dunmall and Chad Palmer had already taken their positions at the east and west entrances, AK-47s drawn. Sommer hurdled over the bandit barrier and into the pit, where the five tellers tumbled into a heap, refusing to budge until he trained the Glock’s laser on them. Stotts watched the red dot bob up and down her chest. The pile broke apart, atomized into bodies that rose from the floor to do Specialist Sommer’s bidding.
He lifted the empty ammo bag. “If this bag isn’t full by the time I’m done counting down, I’m going to waste all of you.” 30, 29, 28… But he had rules: “I don’t want any dye packs, I don’t want any serialized bills. Just give me all the loose cash you have in your drawers. Don’t touch the alarm. I’m watching all of you.” 27, 26, 25…
“These girls just are like, How the hell does he know all this?” Sommer said later. He locked eyes with Stotts and recognized her as the teller who had assisted him four days earlier. “And she’s like, Holy fucking shit. She recognized me by my eyes, because I have really, really light blue eyes, and my voice.” Bills flew everywhere, much of it floating to the floor like confetti in a ticker tape parade as the tellers ransacked their drawers and practically threw cash at Sommer to beat his clock. 21, 20, 19…
Outside the teller pit, as eight or so customers crouched on the ground, Palmer, at the west door, ticked off the seconds on his stopwatch (“One minute left”). Robertson ordered the floor manager to open the vault. She needed the help of another nearby employee; each had separate parts of the code to open the lock. Robertson herded the women back to the vault. Inside sat nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Robertson realized he didn’t have a bag to put the money in—a hole in Sommer’s plan—and stepped away to find one, leaving the women inside the vault.
Back in the pit, Sommer prodded the tellers. 14, 13, 12… One told him it was her first day and that she was terrified. Sommer put his hand on her shoulder and, as he recalls it, said, “Look, these girls have gone through this training before, they’re professionals, they know what they’re doing, just go outside, but the guy at the door’s going to watch you so don’t go anywhere, but just take a breather.” And once she had emptied her drawer he let her leave the teller pit. 8, 7, 6…
NEXT: The FBI searches for the robbers.
Published: September 2009
gripping story, beautifully written
I know Nathan Dunmall, but I haven’t spoken to him since months before this occured. I am looking for a way to contact him, if anyone has any information on his mailing address, please let me know.
Whole thing is genius.
Yeah well I was one of the tellers…
haha my brother is the one who robbed the bank xD
That was the best piece of writing I have read in a long time… just don’t see this level with the newsertainment outlets.