WEBVTT - The Tipping Point Revisited: An Excerpt 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:24.556 Pushkin. Hello, Hello, Revisions History listeners. We are back with 0:00:24.636 --> 0:00:27.836 a very very special announcement. I have a new book 0:00:27.876 --> 0:00:31.036 coming out. It's called Revenge of the Tipping Point. It's 0:00:31.036 --> 0:00:33.476 a sequel to The Tipping Point, my very first book 0:00:33.516 --> 0:00:37.356 from twenty five years ago. It's like a little silver 0:00:37.396 --> 0:00:41.876 anniversary present for you, my loyal listeners. The original Tipping 0:00:41.916 --> 0:00:44.716 Point was about how the best way to understand ideas 0:00:44.996 --> 0:00:48.116 and behaviors and social change was to use the model 0:00:48.156 --> 0:00:51.876 of the epidemic. This time around, in Revenge of the 0:00:51.916 --> 0:00:56.076 Tipping Point, I'm taking those ideas and going one big 0:00:56.116 --> 0:01:02.036 step deeper. Now I'm interested in the dark side. I 0:01:02.116 --> 0:01:04.836 go to Miami and try and figure out why Miami 0:01:04.876 --> 0:01:08.036 is so strange. I go to a seemingly perfect little 0:01:08.036 --> 0:01:11.836 town called Popular Growth, where a tragedy is unfolding. I 0:01:11.836 --> 0:01:14.556 have a chapter on the Holocaust that I think will 0:01:14.596 --> 0:01:19.236 completely surprise you. Yet another takedown of Harvard University. I know, 0:01:19.356 --> 0:01:22.196 I know, I'm a broken record, but I'm inordinately proud 0:01:22.236 --> 0:01:25.836 of this one. On and on a mixture of narrative 0:01:25.956 --> 0:01:31.796 ingredients baked into a highly entertaining suffle. And today we're 0:01:31.836 --> 0:01:37.076 sharing an exclusive preview of Chapter one of the audiobook 0:01:37.116 --> 0:01:39.556 of Revenge of the Tipping Point. It's all about bank 0:01:39.636 --> 0:01:42.196 robbers and doctors. And that's all I'm going to tell you, 0:01:42.556 --> 0:01:45.876 because you'll have to listen to find out more. But 0:01:45.996 --> 0:01:48.636 that's not all. Coming up in the next couple of 0:01:48.636 --> 0:01:51.916 weeks on revisionist history, we have all kinds of goodies 0:01:51.956 --> 0:01:54.756 related to my book. We've got a two part episode 0:01:54.756 --> 0:01:58.116 on maybe my favorite criminal trial ever, something I call 0:01:58.716 --> 0:02:02.636 the Georgetown Massacre. Then an episode where I go back 0:02:02.676 --> 0:02:04.876 and audit the chapter I wrote on crime in the 0:02:04.916 --> 0:02:08.236 original Tipping Point. Did I get it right? And finally 0:02:08.236 --> 0:02:10.436 we're going to run the comment station I'm having with 0:02:10.516 --> 0:02:12.756 the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, at the 0:02:12.836 --> 0:02:16.516 ninety second Street y in New York. Stay tuned and 0:02:16.556 --> 0:02:20.076 for now enjoy this preview of Revenge of the Tipping Point. 0:02:21.716 --> 0:02:23.996 You can find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you 0:02:24.036 --> 0:02:35.036 get your audiobooks. Part one three Puzzles, Chapter one Casper 0:02:35.716 --> 0:02:41.316 and Sea Dog. It was just like wildfire. Everyone was 0:02:41.396 --> 0:02:48.956 jumping into the gate. One In the early afternoon of 0:02:49.036 --> 0:02:52.876 November twenty ninth, nineteen eighty three, the Los Angeles Field 0:02:52.876 --> 0:02:56.796 office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a call 0:02:56.836 --> 0:02:59.796 from a Bank of America branch in the Melrose District. 0:03:00.276 --> 0:03:03.876 The call was taken by an FBI agent named Linda Webster. 0:03:04.556 --> 0:03:06.956 She was the person in the office who fielded what 0:03:07.036 --> 0:03:11.276 were known as two elevens shorts. A bank robbery's there 0:03:11.276 --> 0:03:13.756 had just been a hold up. She was told the 0:03:13.796 --> 0:03:16.916 suspect was a young white male wearing a New York 0:03:16.996 --> 0:03:22.796 Yankees baseball cap, slender, polite Southern accent, well dressed. He 0:03:22.836 --> 0:03:26.876 said please and thank you. Webster turned to her colleague, 0:03:27.036 --> 0:03:30.476 William Rader, who ran the FBI's local bank robbery division. 0:03:31.116 --> 0:03:39.956 Bill it's the Yankee. The Yankee Bandit had been active 0:03:39.956 --> 0:03:43.196 in Los Angeles since July of that year. He had 0:03:43.236 --> 0:03:46.516 hit one bank after another, slipping away each time with 0:03:46.596 --> 0:03:50.876 thousands of dollars in a leather suitcase. Raider was growing frustrated. 0:03:51.236 --> 0:03:54.036 Who was this man? All the bureau had to go 0:03:54.116 --> 0:03:58.436 on was that telltale baseball cap, hence the nickname the 0:03:58.556 --> 0:04:03.756 Yankee Bandit. Half an hour passed, Webster got another to eleven. 0:04:04.236 --> 0:04:07.956 This one was from a City National Bank sixteen blocks 0:04:07.996 --> 0:04:11.436 west in the Fairfax District. They had been taken for 0:04:11.556 --> 0:04:15.396 two thousand, three hundred and forty nine dollars. The caller 0:04:15.436 --> 0:04:19.796 gave Webster the details. She looked at Raider, Bill, it's 0:04:19.796 --> 0:04:24.316 the Yankee again. Forty five minutes after that, the Yankee 0:04:24.396 --> 0:04:27.876 hit a Security Pacific National Bank in Centry City, then 0:04:28.036 --> 0:04:31.156 immediately walked one block down the street and held up 0:04:31.196 --> 0:04:34.356 a First Interstate Bank for two thousand, five hundred and 0:04:34.396 --> 0:04:39.036 five dollars. Bill, it's the Yankee twice, back to back. 0:04:40.236 --> 0:04:43.316 Less than an hour passed, the phone rang again. The 0:04:43.396 --> 0:04:46.396 Yankee had just hid an Imperial Bank on Wilshire Boulevard. 0:04:46.836 --> 0:04:49.396 If you drive from Centry City to the Imperial Bank 0:04:49.436 --> 0:04:53.156 on Wiltshire, you pass right by the FBI's office. He 0:04:53.276 --> 0:04:57.836 probably waived at us. Raider told Webster they were now unnoticed. 0:04:58.076 --> 0:05:02.316 History was being made. They waited, could the Yankee possibly 0:05:02.356 --> 0:05:07.196 strike again? At five point thirty, the phone rang. An 0:05:07.276 --> 0:05:11.836 unknown white male slender an accent Yankee cap had just 0:05:11.956 --> 0:05:15.756 robbed the First Interstate Bank in Encino, fifteen minutes north 0:05:15.836 --> 0:05:18.796 on the four or five Freeway, for two thousand, four 0:05:18.876 --> 0:05:24.116 hundred and thirteen dollars. Bill, it's the Yankee. One man, 0:05:24.716 --> 0:05:30.476 four hours, six banks. It was a New World's record, 0:05:30.796 --> 0:05:37.836 Raider would later write in his memoirs Still Unbroken two, 0:05:40.276 --> 0:05:43.516 no criminal has ever held as exalted a position in 0:05:43.556 --> 0:05:47.556 American culture as the bank robber. In the years after 0:05:47.596 --> 0:05:50.596 the Civil War, the country was riveted by the exploits 0:05:50.836 --> 0:05:54.156 of bands such as the James Younger Gang, who terrorized 0:05:54.156 --> 0:05:56.596 the wild West with bank hold ups and trained robbers. 0:05:57.556 --> 0:06:02.116 In the Depression, bank robbers became celebrities. Bonnie and Clyde, 0:06:02.436 --> 0:06:05.836 pretty Boy Floyd John Dillinger, Billy brought. 0:06:05.636 --> 0:06:09.036 To Chicago recaptured after he had escaped from Lima, Ohio. 0:06:09.116 --> 0:06:12.716 Despert public enemy now rises to fame as an underworld hero. 0:06:13.436 --> 0:06:17.116 Where is Clyde Beryl and Bonnie Parker who died as 0:06:17.156 --> 0:06:19.076 they lived by a gun. 0:06:20.716 --> 0:06:23.476 But in the years after the Second World War, the 0:06:23.556 --> 0:06:28.596 crime seemed to be fading. In nineteen sixty nine, a 0:06:28.636 --> 0:06:32.076 total of thirteen hundred and eighteen banks were robbed across 0:06:32.116 --> 0:06:36.036 the entire United States, a modest number given the size 0:06:36.036 --> 0:06:39.716 of the country. There was speculation that bank robberies were 0:06:39.756 --> 0:06:44.236 headed toward extinction. Few major crimes had higher arrest and 0:06:44.316 --> 0:06:48.156 conviction rates. Banks felt they had learned how to protect themselves. 0:06:48.676 --> 0:06:52.476 A definitive study at bank robbery was entitled nothing to lose, 0:06:52.876 --> 0:06:56.516 meaning that the act seemed so irrational that its perpetrators 0:06:56.756 --> 0:06:59.836 must have run out of other options. It seemed like 0:06:59.876 --> 0:07:04.316 the twentieth century equivalent of cattle rustling, who does it anymore? 0:07:05.156 --> 0:07:09.476 But then came an epidemic. In a single year, from 0:07:09.556 --> 0:07:12.756 nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy the number of bank 0:07:12.836 --> 0:07:16.876 robberies nearly doubled, then rose again in nineteen seventy one, 0:07:17.196 --> 0:07:21.356 and once more in nineteen seventy two. In nineteen seventy four, 0:07:21.716 --> 0:07:25.556 three thousand, five hundred and seventeen banks were robbed. Two 0:07:25.676 --> 0:07:28.556 years later, the number was four thousand, five hundred and 0:07:28.636 --> 0:07:32.036 sixty five. By the beginning of the nineteen eighties, they 0:07:32.076 --> 0:07:35.316 were five times more bank robberies than there had been 0:07:35.596 --> 0:07:38.316 at the end of the nineteen sixties. It was a 0:07:38.316 --> 0:07:42.316 crime wave without precedent, and it was just getting started. 0:07:43.636 --> 0:07:46.396 In nineteen ninety one, the FBI fielded a two to 0:07:46.436 --> 0:07:49.276 eleven call from a bank somewhere in the United States 0:07:49.916 --> 0:07:54.796 nine thousand, three hundred and eighty eight times, And the 0:07:54.836 --> 0:07:58.436 center of this astonishing surge was the city of Los. 0:07:58.276 --> 0:08:03.036 Angeles, the sprawling city that's home to Hollywood movie capital 0:08:03.076 --> 0:08:06.476 of the world is also the bank robbery capital of 0:08:06.556 --> 0:08:07.036 the world. 0:08:07.876 --> 0:08:11.156 A quarter of all bank robberies in the US in 0:08:11.196 --> 0:08:14.676 those years happened in Los Angeles. There were years when 0:08:14.676 --> 0:08:18.196 the local FBI office handled as many as twenty six 0:08:18.316 --> 0:08:23.036 hundred bank robberies. So many robbers robbing so many banks 0:08:23.236 --> 0:08:25.556 that Raider and the Bureau were forced to give them 0:08:25.636 --> 0:08:29.036 nicknames to keep them straight. The man who disguised himself 0:08:29.076 --> 0:08:33.036 with surgical gauze became the Mummy Bandit. The man who 0:08:33.036 --> 0:08:36.556 are a single glove became naturally the Michael Jackson Bandit. 0:08:36.876 --> 0:08:39.876 A two man team who wore fake mustaches with the 0:08:39.916 --> 0:08:43.396 Marx brothers. A short o beast robber was Miss Piggy. 0:08:43.836 --> 0:08:46.956 A beautiful robber was the Miss America Bandit. A guy 0:08:47.036 --> 0:08:50.116 who waved a knife was the Benni Hahonna Bandit. On 0:08:50.676 --> 0:08:53.236 and on it went. They were robbers named after Johnny 0:08:53.236 --> 0:08:56.556 Cash and Robert de Niro. One group robbed in threes, 0:08:56.956 --> 0:08:59.676 one dressed as a biker, another as a cop, and 0:08:59.676 --> 0:09:02.676 the third as a construction worker. Do you need to 0:09:02.716 --> 0:09:05.476 ask what they were called? This was the nineteen eighties. 0:09:06.676 --> 0:09:10.396 They were known as the Village People. It was just 0:09:10.556 --> 0:09:15.276 like wildfire, remembers Peter Hoolihan, one of the unofficial historians 0:09:15.516 --> 0:09:19.836 of the La Bank robbery Surge. Everybody was jumping into 0:09:19.836 --> 0:09:25.916 the game. Ten years into the surge, incredibly, things got 0:09:25.996 --> 0:09:29.756 much worse. The first generation of Ellie robbers were like 0:09:29.796 --> 0:09:32.396 the Yankee Bandit. They walked up to a teller and 0:09:32.436 --> 0:09:35.116 they had a gun, scooped up whatever cash was on hand, 0:09:35.276 --> 0:09:39.476 and fled. People called them a bit dismissively note passers. 0:09:40.396 --> 0:09:42.436 But then came a two man group called the West 0:09:42.516 --> 0:09:45.996 Hills Bandits. The West Sails Gang went back to the 0:09:45.996 --> 0:09:49.356 grand tradition of Jesse, James and Bonnie and Clyde. They 0:09:49.396 --> 0:09:53.036 came in hot in wigs and masks, waving assault weapons. 0:09:53.556 --> 0:09:56.076 They would force their way into the teller's cage and 0:09:56.196 --> 0:09:59.596 clean out the entire bank, empty the vault if they could, 0:09:59.916 --> 0:10:04.796 before executing a meticulously planned escape. The Bandits had a 0:10:04.836 --> 0:10:08.076 bunker in the San Fernando Valley filled with military grade 0:10:08.076 --> 0:10:12.516 weapons and twenty seven thousand rounds of ammunition to prepare 0:10:12.516 --> 0:10:16.876 for what their leader believed was an imminent armageddon. Even 0:10:16.916 --> 0:10:19.916 by the standards of nineteen nineties Los Angeles, the West 0:10:19.996 --> 0:10:24.836 Hills Gang was a little crazy. On their fifth robbery, 0:10:25.116 --> 0:10:27.316 the West Hills Gang broke into the vault of a 0:10:27.316 --> 0:10:30.636 Wells Fargo bank in Tarzana and made off with four 0:10:30.716 --> 0:10:34.356 hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars more than one million 0:10:34.396 --> 0:10:38.836 in today's dollars. And then Wells Fargo made a crucial mistake. 0:10:39.476 --> 0:10:42.756 The bank told the press exactly how much the West 0:10:42.796 --> 0:10:45.756 Hills Gang had stolen. It was like putting a match 0:10:45.796 --> 0:10:50.156 to kindling. Four hundred and thirty seven thousand, Are you 0:10:50.276 --> 0:10:53.716 kidding me? One of the first to take notice was 0:10:53.756 --> 0:10:57.716 an enterprising twenty three year old named Robert Sheldon Brown. 0:10:58.316 --> 0:11:03.036 His street name was Casper. Casper did the math. I've robbed, 0:11:03.196 --> 0:11:05.676 I've done burglaries, I've done a little bit of everything, 0:11:05.916 --> 0:11:08.716 he would explain later. But the money couldn't compare to 0:11:08.756 --> 0:11:11.356 the bank. You could go into a bank and in 0:11:11.436 --> 0:11:13.956 two minutes get what on the streets would take you 0:11:13.996 --> 0:11:17.636 six or seven weeks to get. John Wiley, one of 0:11:17.676 --> 0:11:21.516 the prosecutors who eventually brought Casper to justice, remembers him 0:11:21.556 --> 0:11:25.556 as a standout. He said, Casper was really ripped and 0:11:25.596 --> 0:11:26.316 really smart. 0:11:26.916 --> 0:11:30.756 Here he is he figured out the problem with robbing 0:11:30.796 --> 0:11:34.196 banks is going into the bank, so he got somebody 0:11:34.236 --> 0:11:36.956 else to do that. You would think, how could you 0:11:36.996 --> 0:11:40.956 possibly get someone to rob a bank for you? And 0:11:40.996 --> 0:11:45.996 that was his particular talent, was recruiting people to rob 0:11:46.076 --> 0:11:52.596 banksworm and he recruited an unbelievable number of folks. He 0:11:52.796 --> 0:11:56.076 was kind of a producer in Hollywood terms. 0:11:56.676 --> 0:12:00.196 Casper had a partner in crime, Donzel Thompson, also known 0:12:00.236 --> 0:12:02.636 as Sea Dog. They would pick a bank they thought 0:12:02.756 --> 0:12:05.236 was ripe for a hit, then it'd find a getaway car, 0:12:05.556 --> 0:12:09.156 known in gangs speak as the g ride. In the 0:12:09.156 --> 0:12:13.796 early nineteen nineties, Los Angeles also experienced an astonishing surge 0:12:13.836 --> 0:12:17.476 in carjackings, which were treated in the press as another 0:12:17.516 --> 0:12:21.636 indication of the random mayhem sweeping the streets. But a 0:12:21.636 --> 0:12:24.756 good chunk of it was actually just Casper and Sea Dog. 0:12:25.396 --> 0:12:27.796 They had a guy they paid to acquire their g rides. 0:12:28.196 --> 0:12:31.116 If you were doing as many bank robberies as Casper was, 0:12:31.636 --> 0:12:35.996 you needed a lot of cars. Then he would pick 0:12:36.036 --> 0:12:38.196 the crew Prosecutor Wiley. 0:12:38.276 --> 0:12:43.716 Again, a lot of his robbers were just kids. I 0:12:43.716 --> 0:12:46.916 think he probably paid some of them nothing. He just 0:12:47.036 --> 0:12:49.756 coerced him into robbing. He was a big threatening guy, 0:12:50.436 --> 0:12:52.276 and you know he was a member of the role 0:12:52.276 --> 0:12:56.796 in the sixties was a very notorious crips gang. 0:12:57.476 --> 0:13:00.756 Wiley recalled a particular recruit who was very young, no 0:13:00.836 --> 0:13:02.276 more than thirteen or fourteen. 0:13:03.276 --> 0:13:06.676 I remember he took the kid out of school and said, 0:13:06.716 --> 0:13:08.596 you know, when can you rob this bank for me? 0:13:09.356 --> 0:13:14.316 And the guy said during nutrition break. So during nutrition 0:13:14.436 --> 0:13:18.436 break they picked him up and Brown and Thompson explained 0:13:18.476 --> 0:13:23.236 how to do it. You go in scurbate to death, 0:13:23.996 --> 0:13:25.316 get the money, get out. 0:13:26.236 --> 0:13:29.156 Casper taught his recruits a technique he called go and 0:13:29.236 --> 0:13:33.036 com akazi. His kids would come busting in, waving their 0:13:33.076 --> 0:13:36.636 machine pistols and assault rifles, firing rounds at the ceiling 0:13:36.836 --> 0:13:39.276 and screaming obscenities on the floor. 0:13:39.316 --> 0:13:39.516 Mother. 0:13:40.876 --> 0:13:43.556 They would stuff all the cash they could into pillowcases, 0:13:43.956 --> 0:13:47.916 grab wallets, and rip rings off women's fingers if they 0:13:47.956 --> 0:13:51.756 wanted a little extra treasure for the road. On at 0:13:51.876 --> 0:13:55.876 least two jobs, Casper borrowed a school bus to ferry 0:13:55.876 --> 0:13:59.516 his young charges to safety. Another time he borrowed a 0:13:59.556 --> 0:14:04.876 postal service truck. Casper had imagination he would exercise managerial 0:14:05.036 --> 0:14:08.756 oversight of his operations from a position of safety parked 0:14:08.756 --> 0:14:11.676 in a car somewhere far down the block, then follow 0:14:11.716 --> 0:14:14.756 his hand picked team as they raced through the streets. 0:14:15.436 --> 0:14:17.636 These guys knew if they tried to get away with 0:14:17.676 --> 0:14:21.276 them all the money that have these two roll in 0:14:21.396 --> 0:14:24.076 sixties crips after him, and that would not improve their lives. 0:14:25.036 --> 0:14:27.876 The g ride would be abandoned. The whole crew would 0:14:27.876 --> 0:14:31.236 retreat to Casper's hideout, usually in a motel, where he 0:14:31.236 --> 0:14:34.116 would pay them a pittance and let them go. They 0:14:34.156 --> 0:14:37.476 were kids, Chances are they would get caught, but Casper 0:14:37.516 --> 0:14:41.116 didn't care. Here's Wiley describing his general attitude. 0:14:41.876 --> 0:14:44.676 I mean, okay, so that wasn't great. My guys got caught. 0:14:44.956 --> 0:14:46.836 Now we have to get new guys. But we do 0:14:46.916 --> 0:14:47.676 that all the time. 0:14:48.436 --> 0:14:53.196 In just four years, Casper produced one hundred and seventy 0:14:53.236 --> 0:14:57.316 five robberies, which remains a lifetime bank robbery world record, 0:14:57.676 --> 0:15:02.316 crushing the Yankee Bandits previous mark of seventy two. Casper 0:15:02.316 --> 0:15:05.396 and Sea Dog even came close to the Yankee Bandits 0:15:05.476 --> 0:15:08.796 one day mark of six heists on a single day. 0:15:08.876 --> 0:15:11.396 In a August of nineteen ninety one, they produced five 0:15:12.076 --> 0:15:15.716 a first interstate bank on Losienega Boulevard, then banks in 0:15:15.796 --> 0:15:21.076 Eagle Rock, Pasadena, Monterey Park, and Montebello. And remember the 0:15:21.156 --> 0:15:23.996 Yankee bandit was a one man show. Casper was doing 0:15:24.036 --> 0:15:29.596 something infinitely more difficult, organizing and supervising teams of robbers. 0:15:30.676 --> 0:15:33.556 Once Casper showed the world how easy it was to 0:15:33.596 --> 0:15:36.956 take over a bank, other gangs jumped in. The eight 0:15:37.036 --> 0:15:40.916 tray gangster crips started putting together cruise. A duo called 0:15:40.916 --> 0:15:43.956 the Nasty Boys did almost thirty takeovers in under a 0:15:44.036 --> 0:15:48.276 year just the two of them. The Nasty Boys were nasty. 0:15:48.876 --> 0:15:51.556 They liked to herd everyone into the bank vault, talk 0:15:51.676 --> 0:15:54.996 loudly about executions, and fire their guns next to people's 0:15:55.036 --> 0:15:56.796 ears just for the fun of it. 0:15:57.596 --> 0:16:00.076 In retrospect, nineteen ninety two turned out to be the 0:16:00.116 --> 0:16:04.756 peak year for bank robberies. Two thousand, six hundred and 0:16:04.796 --> 0:16:06.356 forty one robberies in one. 0:16:06.236 --> 0:16:07.796 Year Wiley again. 0:16:08.236 --> 0:16:12.036 So that averages one bank robbery every forty five minutes 0:16:12.076 --> 0:16:17.676 for each banking day, and the worst day was twenty 0:16:17.676 --> 0:16:22.916 eight bank robberies in one day. This drove the FBI 0:16:23.076 --> 0:16:26.876 completely crazy. I mean they were completely exhausted. 0:16:27.716 --> 0:16:32.396 Robbing a bank takes minutes. Investigating a bank robbery takes hours. 0:16:32.956 --> 0:16:35.716 As the robberies piled up, the FBI would fall further 0:16:36.116 --> 0:16:37.076 and further behind. 0:16:38.036 --> 0:16:40.916 So if you're having twenty seven robberies a day, if 0:16:40.956 --> 0:16:44.596 one team is committing five robberies in one day, I mean, 0:16:44.676 --> 0:16:48.276 just think physically, how you investigate that. These guys are 0:16:48.356 --> 0:16:51.596 driving all over town as fast as they can robbing, 0:16:52.316 --> 0:16:54.956 so just keeping up with them in La traffic is 0:16:54.996 --> 0:16:58.236 a problem. You get to the bank and how many 0:16:58.236 --> 0:17:00.556 people have witnessed the robbery, Well, how many people were 0:17:00.556 --> 0:17:04.396 in the bank, You know, twenty people, So you need 0:17:04.436 --> 0:17:08.556 to get witness statements from twenty witnesses. This is a 0:17:08.556 --> 0:17:09.756 big project. 0:17:10.076 --> 0:17:13.636 Then just as you start, what happens. 0:17:14.156 --> 0:17:16.676 You're on the scene for five or ten minutes, and 0:17:16.676 --> 0:17:21.396 there's another bank robbery emergency somewhere across town. The FBI 0:17:21.476 --> 0:17:22.876 was being run ragged. 0:17:23.916 --> 0:17:26.956 The city of Los Angeles was the bank robbery capital 0:17:27.156 --> 0:17:29.836 of the world. Wiley held up a chart of bank 0:17:29.916 --> 0:17:33.436 robberies in Los Angeles from the nineteen seventies through the 0:17:33.556 --> 0:17:34.476 nineteen nineties. 0:17:34.996 --> 0:17:37.356 There was no reason to think it would crust. If 0:17:37.396 --> 0:17:40.956 you look at the trend line, it just seems like 0:17:41.036 --> 0:17:42.396 it's heading for the moon. 0:17:43.276 --> 0:17:46.436 The FBI put fifty agents on the case. Over the 0:17:46.476 --> 0:17:48.676 course of many months, they gathered what they could from 0:17:48.716 --> 0:17:52.716 Casper and Sea Dogs, terrified recruits, sorted through the layers 0:17:52.756 --> 0:17:55.396 of deception the two used to hide their assets and 0:17:55.476 --> 0:17:59.276 track them from one address to another across South Los Angeles. 0:18:00.076 --> 0:18:02.396 It took forever to get a grand jury to indict 0:18:02.476 --> 0:18:05.956 Casper and Sea Dog, because what had they done? Nothing, 0:18:06.636 --> 0:18:08.996 They didn't rob any banks. They were just sitting in 0:18:08.996 --> 0:18:13.716 a car down the street. All the FBI had was 0:18:13.716 --> 0:18:17.756 a testimony of terrified teenagers who skipped school between lunch 0:18:17.956 --> 0:18:23.876 and recess. Finally, prosecutors thought they had enough evidence. They 0:18:23.876 --> 0:18:26.916 found Sea Dog at his grandmother's house in Carson and 0:18:27.036 --> 0:18:30.076 arrested Casper as he stepped out of a cab with 0:18:30.156 --> 0:18:33.116 the two of them behind bars. The bank robbery fever 0:18:33.436 --> 0:18:37.716 that had seized Los Angeles finally broke. Within roughly a year, 0:18:38.076 --> 0:18:40.796 the number of robberies in the city dropped thirty percent, 0:18:41.316 --> 0:18:46.276 then drifted even lower. Bank robberies didn't head for the moon. 0:18:46.836 --> 0:18:54.676 The contagion passed. When Casper and Sea Dog got out 0:18:54.716 --> 0:18:57.116 of federal prison in the summer of twenty twenty three, 0:18:57.636 --> 0:19:00.796 they shopped their story around Hollywood and took meetings with 0:19:00.916 --> 0:19:05.636 film producers. Movie executives who heard their story were incredulous 0:19:06.236 --> 0:19:24.076 that happened here. Yes it did. Three. I want to 0:19:24.116 --> 0:19:27.636 begin Revenge of the Tipping Point with a series of puzzles, 0:19:28.276 --> 0:19:33.396 three interconnected stories that seem at first glance to defy explanation. 0:19:34.316 --> 0:19:38.676 The third involves a little town called pop Lagrove. The 0:19:38.796 --> 0:19:42.356 second involves the story of a man named Philip s Forms. 0:19:43.036 --> 0:19:46.476 And this first chapter involves the exploits of the Yankee 0:19:46.516 --> 0:19:52.476 Bandit and Casper and Sea Dog. The Los Angeles bank 0:19:52.556 --> 0:19:56.636 robbery crisis of the early nineteen nineties was an epidemic. 0:19:57.076 --> 0:20:00.236 It fit all rules. This was not an outbreak generated 0:20:00.396 --> 0:20:04.876 inside each robber like a toothache. It was contagious. A 0:20:04.916 --> 0:20:08.196 low grade fever surfaced across the United States at the 0:20:08.316 --> 0:20:10.996 end of the nineteen six sixties. In the nineteen eighties, 0:20:11.196 --> 0:20:15.316 the Yankee Bandit caught that bug in Los Angeles. The 0:20:15.356 --> 0:20:18.716 West Hills Bandits later picked up that virus, and in 0:20:18.756 --> 0:20:22.436 their hands it mutated into something darker and more violent. 0:20:22.836 --> 0:20:25.556 They passed a new Strainnan to Caspar and Sea Dog, 0:20:25.716 --> 0:20:29.996 who reinvented the process outsourcing the labor and scaling up 0:20:30.076 --> 0:20:34.236 dramatically like the late twentieth century capitalists they were. And 0:20:34.316 --> 0:20:37.876 from there the infection went clear across the city to 0:20:37.956 --> 0:20:40.876 the Eight Tray gangsters and the Nasty Boys, and on 0:20:40.956 --> 0:20:44.116 and on, sweeping up hundreds of young men, until by 0:20:44.156 --> 0:20:47.356 the time the bank takeover boom peaked in Los Angeles, 0:20:47.756 --> 0:20:50.916 the small time note passing of the Yankee Bandit era 0:20:51.596 --> 0:20:58.556 seemed like a dim memory. Socio epidemics are propelled by 0:20:58.596 --> 0:21:03.276 the efforts of an exceptional few people who play outsized 0:21:03.396 --> 0:21:08.196 social roles, and that was exactly how the LA outbreak unfolded. 0:21:08.676 --> 0:21:11.756 This was never a mass participation event like one of 0:21:11.756 --> 0:21:14.916 those big city marathons where tons of thousands of people 0:21:14.956 --> 0:21:18.196 sign up. It was a reign of mayhem, driven by 0:21:18.196 --> 0:21:22.076 a small number of people who robbed over and over 0:21:22.436 --> 0:21:26.716 and over again. The Yankee Bandit robbed sixty four banks 0:21:26.796 --> 0:21:30.276 in nine months before the FBI finally grabbed him. He 0:21:30.316 --> 0:21:33.556 went to prison for ten years, got out, then robbed 0:21:33.556 --> 0:21:37.436 eight more banks. The Nasty Boys did twenty seven banks. 0:21:37.716 --> 0:21:41.436 Casper and Sea Dog masterminded one hundred and seventy five. 0:21:41.796 --> 0:21:44.956 If you focused only on the Yankee Bandit, Casper and 0:21:44.996 --> 0:21:47.956 the Nasty Boys. You would have a pretty complete picture 0:21:47.996 --> 0:21:50.756 of what happened in Los Angeles in the nineteen eighties 0:21:50.836 --> 0:21:55.876 and early nineteen nineties, A contagious phenomenon that rose and tipped, 0:21:56.236 --> 0:22:00.836 fueled by the extraordinary actions of a few Casper, while 0:22:00.836 --> 0:22:04.036 he said, is the super spreader if you want to 0:22:04.076 --> 0:22:08.436 talk about epidemics, was the context in the nineteen eighties 0:22:08.476 --> 0:22:12.916 and the early nineteen nineties ripe for a bank robbery explosion? Yes, 0:22:12.956 --> 0:22:16.036 it was. Between the nineteen seventies and the end of 0:22:16.036 --> 0:22:19.076 the nineteen nineties, the number of bank branches in the 0:22:19.156 --> 0:22:23.636 United States tripled. Casper and Sea Dog were shooting fish 0:22:23.676 --> 0:22:27.036 in a barrel. The fever that swept Los Angeles in 0:22:27.076 --> 0:22:31.116 the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties makes perfect sense, 0:22:31.956 --> 0:22:34.956 except for one thing. There's a puzzle. 0:22:40.836 --> 0:22:41.116 Four. 0:22:44.156 --> 0:22:48.756 In the early morning of March ninth, nineteen fifty, Willie 0:22:48.756 --> 0:22:51.596 Sutton rose and applied a heavy coat of makeup to 0:22:51.676 --> 0:22:55.596 his face. The previous evening he had dyed his hair 0:22:55.796 --> 0:22:59.356 several shades lighter, so that he was almost blonde, and 0:22:59.396 --> 0:23:02.476 now he wanted to pair that with an olive complexion. 0:23:03.156 --> 0:23:06.836 He applied mascara to his eyebrows. To give them some substance. 0:23:07.356 --> 0:23:10.716 He stuffed bits of cork inside his nostrils to broaden 0:23:10.756 --> 0:23:14.036 his nose. That he put on a gray suit, tailored 0:23:14.076 --> 0:23:18.636 and padded in such a way as to alter his silhouette. Satisfied, 0:23:18.676 --> 0:23:21.596 did he no longer look like Willy Sutton? Willie Sutton 0:23:21.676 --> 0:23:25.436 left his house in Staten Island for Sunnyside, Queen's to 0:23:25.516 --> 0:23:29.036 a Manufacture's Trust Company branch at forty fourth Street and 0:23:29.156 --> 0:23:33.436 Queen's Boulevard in New York City. Sutton had spent the 0:23:33.636 --> 0:23:37.956 previous three weeks standing across the street every morning, learning 0:23:37.996 --> 0:23:41.556 the routines of the bank's employees. He liked what he saw. 0:23:42.116 --> 0:23:45.076 There was an elevated subway stop across the street, a 0:23:45.116 --> 0:23:48.996 bus stop, and a taxi stand. The street was busy 0:23:49.476 --> 0:23:53.156 and Sutton like crowds. The bank's guard, a slow moving 0:23:53.236 --> 0:23:56.516 man named Weston who lived nearby, arrived every morning at 0:23:56.516 --> 0:24:01.196 eight thirty, engrossed in his newspaper. Between eight thirty and nine, 0:24:01.476 --> 0:24:04.476 he would let in the bank's other employees, culminating in 0:24:04.516 --> 0:24:09.556 the bank's manager, mister Hoffman, who arrived like clockwork at 0:24:09.636 --> 0:24:13.596 nine o one. The Manufacturer's Trust opened to the public 0:24:13.716 --> 0:24:17.196 at ten o'clock, much later than most bank branches. This 0:24:17.396 --> 0:24:21.276 too made Sutton happy. He regarded the time between the 0:24:21.396 --> 0:24:24.276 arrival of the first employee and the arrival of the 0:24:24.316 --> 0:24:28.276 first customer as his time, and his time in this 0:24:28.396 --> 0:24:32.196 case would be more than an hour. At eight twenty, 0:24:32.756 --> 0:24:35.476 Sutton mingled with the crowd waiting at the bus stop. 0:24:35.996 --> 0:24:39.196 A few minutes later, the Castilian Weston turned the corner, 0:24:39.396 --> 0:24:42.516 lost in his newspaper. As Weston took out his keys 0:24:42.556 --> 0:24:46.316 to open the door, Sutton slipped in behind him. Weston 0:24:46.396 --> 0:24:49.876 turned in shock. Sutton looked him in the eye and 0:24:49.916 --> 0:24:53.796 said quietly, come inside. I want to talk to you. 0:24:55.436 --> 0:24:58.796 Sutton wasn't a fan of guns. Guns for him were props. 0:24:59.356 --> 0:25:02.996 His real weapon was a quiet authority that compelled the 0:25:02.996 --> 0:25:06.476 attention of others. He explained to the guard what would 0:25:06.516 --> 0:25:10.276 happen next. First they would let him one of his accomplices. 0:25:10.956 --> 0:25:15.236 Then the remaining employees would be admitted, exactly as they 0:25:15.236 --> 0:25:19.636 were each morning. As each one entered, Sutton's accomplice would 0:25:19.676 --> 0:25:22.796 emerge and lead them by the elbow to a row 0:25:22.796 --> 0:25:26.676 of chairs he'd set up in preparation. Once you've taken 0:25:26.756 --> 0:25:29.836 control of the bank, Sutton would write years later in 0:25:29.916 --> 0:25:33.956 his memoirs. Sutton was sufficiently famous by that point that 0:25:34.036 --> 0:25:37.356 he wrote not one, but two sets of memoirs. Like 0:25:37.396 --> 0:25:39.596 a statesman who feels the need to respond to the 0:25:39.636 --> 0:25:43.116 turns of history, it doesn't really matter who comes to 0:25:43.156 --> 0:25:47.076 the door. A trio of painters once arrived unexpectedly while 0:25:47.116 --> 0:25:49.796 I was taking a bank in Pennsylvania, and I simply 0:25:49.836 --> 0:25:52.756 told them to spread out their drop cloths and go 0:25:52.836 --> 0:25:55.596