The McBournie Minute: Steal my attention

Colton Harris-Moore, the alleged Barefoot Bandit, captured America’s interest for more than a year. The idea of a teenager outsmarting the law, traveling across the country on a crime spree seemed to just click with people.

You have to admit it was pretty cool to hear about a kid stealing and crashing private planes, in some cases, leaving his mark on the runway. Of course, landing he wasn’t so good at, not that he had a pilot’s license or anything. The problem here is that he set a new standard for criminals.

Now, we’ve got people committing crimes trying to get famous with one-off gimmicks. I am here to say not that crime doesn’t pay, I’m sure it does on occasion, but crime for the sake of crime is downright annoying.

The crime wave in effect this summer has seen some unusual headlines. Sure, a guy trying to smuggle 18 monkeys in his shirt is going to get some air time, but it’s not like he was trying to get caught. In that case, it was more of a question of how exactly one can fit that many monkeys in your shirt and act calm at customs while they crawl around on your belly.

But after Harris-Moore was apprehended, we saw stories about how catchy nicknames helped law enforcement catch the bad guys, a tool they have been employing for decades. Since then, we’ve seen the romantic bandit–a dude who robs a bank with flowers, a robber using panties as a mask, Darth Vader holding up a bank in New York, and everyone’s favorite, a dude robbing a bank in clown pants and fake breasts. We call him the boob bandit.

My problem with these people, aside from their crimes, is that they are clearly just trying to get attention in the Internet Age. They come up with something they know is unusual and just dumb enough to work, then they let the media do the rest. Folks, if you really want to rob a bank, you don’t need to go all Point Break. A lot of times you don’t even need a mask. My sister,at her former job as a bank teller, was robbed earlier this year. The dude didn’t even have a mask and the cops can’t find him.

When you try to get famous by being a criminal with a flair for the strange, it comes off as cheap. So I ask America’s bank robbers, whom I think are the best in the world, to try harder. Come up with something clever, not desperate. Only then will you provide me with the shallow entertainment I am looking for.