Crime Hit Home

[Dennis1209]

Experiencing allot of emotions today, mostly sick to my stomach, scared and a feeling of helplessness.

This morning at 8:00 A.M. my 21 year old daughter was grabbed in her work parking lot and forced at gun point to her head to the inside of her employment building. She is a loan officer in training at the Scott Credit Union, Cahokia, IL.

Once inside it was discovered there were two of them. There were three employees, one of which was a manager in training, all female. Both scumbags were described as having small handguns.

The scumbags (I’m withholding what I would like to call them) tightly bound my daughter and the other two employees with nylon tie wraps in an out of the way office. They threatened to kill them unless they did exactly what they were told.

They demanded that they open the vault immediately. The only employee that had access was the manager in training. My daughter has only worked for Scott Credit Union for about three months and is still in training herself. Fortunately the MIT maintained her cool and was able to open the vault.

It was reported to the Cahokia police that over $100,000.00 was stolen.

A little back ground: I spent about 30 years in that now crime infested stink hole named Cahokia, it’s next door to East St. Louis, IL. It was founded in 1699. It wasn’t bad when I purchased my house and it was an easy commute across the Poplar Street Bridge to work. So I toughed it out until I was able to retire and moved to God’s country, Tennessee.

We tried very hard to convince our daughter to relocate with us to TN. She has become independent and wanted to stay in Cahokia with her life long friends. She thinks country life is boring. She recently completed her Associates Degree at Southwestern Illinois College and obtained her job shortly there after as a credit union teller, then just got promoted to loan officer in training.

Get this! This place has been robbed not once, not twice, not three times but… Four times in the last three months! This time they are promising to add some security? By second hand information I’m told, their security cameras are obsolete and not functioning in some areas! According to my daughter they are going to upgrade their system. Whoopee freaking deal… How about hiring a security guard? They are not taking employee safety and security seriously.

Anyway, fortunately no one was hurt, save sore wrists and hands from the nylon tie wraps. I’m going to encourage my daughter to seek employment elsewhere in a safer environment and neighborhood. But she is making more money than she has ever made in her life and likes the job? I’m probably going to push my parental authority to the extreme and demand she get the hell out of there.

I’m here to tell you, I’m frightened about how things could have turned out. I thank God everything turned out okay and no one was shot and / or killed. I’m so angry I want to personally meet these scumbags face-to-face to the last man standing. I’m depressed because there’s nothing I can do about it and can’t convince my daughter to relocate with us.

According to my daughter, she didn’t have much time to react. She said he jumped up from an adjacent field and ran at her and grabbed her. She said she was thinking it was some sort of joke.

With that mindset and reaction, even if she was armed, in retrospect, she did the right thing and is alive. As you all know she didn’t have an option to be armed anyway. Strike one; she still lives in “The Peoples Republicâ€. Strike two, like 99% of other financial institutions, no weapons allowed. So, there is no other option to protect one’s own life and limb. I wouldn’t recommend pepper spray against a handgun.

You read about these crimes, and worse all the time, and sort of brush them off and try to learn from them. I can tell you from deep inside, when it strikes your family it becomes very personal. You wish it had happened to you and not your daughter. Life is not fair I know but a parent has no greater love than for his children.

Needed to rant and vent a little as I calm down. Sorry…

Edited July 2, 2012 by Dennis1209

[RobertNashville]

No need to apologize...as I read this I got made at these dirtbags too. I'm glad your daughter and the others are okay which is the most important thing.

I don't know what it's like to be the parent of an adult child whom you no longer can exercise control over but I do know what it's like to see a brother and a niece and my aging mother take paths that are poor choices at best and perhaps even self-destructive and how helpless you feel knowing that you can do nothing about it except speak your piece (if they'll even listen) and then sit on the sidelines and hope against hope they'll make a better decision eventually.

All that said, it sounds to me as if you and your wife did a good job raising your daughter; with that foundation, there is good reason to be hopeful that she'll make better choices and maybe even seek your advice!

[NRA]

dontcha just hate turds, a thief is the lowest scum of the earth. I fear the same for my girls and I am glad yours is safe.

[maddog909]

Good to hear your daughter is okay after her ordeal. Hard to imagine a financial institution that's so casual about their security systems that it takes a 4th time before they open their eyes. My advice to your daughter......... get the hell out of there...... fast.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

A shame to hear. As a kid lived in Maryville then Cahokia a couple of years around 1960. East St. Louis was a hellhole even back then but Maryville was three streets, one store and a handful of houses. Cahokia was mostly wheatfields, encroached by a couple of new subdivisions and a refinery that looked like it had been there awhile.

[peejman]

Glad she's ok. I can't imagine what you're feeling at this point. If this place has been robbed that many times and they've done nothing about it, that sure tells me how much they value their employees. That $100k will pale in comparison to the cost of the lawsuits.

[DaveS]

Glad to hear your Daughter and friends made it through this mess OK...chill out....feal for their needs! I guess we all in some way or another have to deal with the worst mankind has to offer!

Edited July 2, 2012 by wd-40

[mikegideon]

i lived in Cahokia for 8 years when i was a kid. It was OK then, but is a complete rathole now. My last relative just moved out of there a year or so ago.

She needs to move across the river.

[DaveTN]

Dennis, that’s terrible. But I’m glad your daughter wasn’t hurt; the girls were very lucky.

From your daughters description of the events it wouldn’t have helped her to have a gun and could have gotten her killed if she had tried to pull one.

It’s easy to blame where she lives, but we have the same thing right here in Tennessee; every day.

The problem is (besides drugs and criminals) that it’s crazy for anywhere that keeps $100K of cash on hand to not have security; no wonder they have been hit multiple times. The girls are lucky the manager had the ability to open the safe, hard telling what would have happened if they had been in a place that didn’t give them that access.

I hope your daughter finds a safer place to work.

[babelt]

Glad to hear your daughter is alright. We actually had our first bank robbery in Greeneville that I can remember, 2 shots fired but no one was hurt. It was a bank right down the road from mine. I could not imagine what your daughter went through, they really need a security guard.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[Volzfan]

Glad she's OK.

[Makiaveli]

Hate to hear that, but glad to hear she made it out ok.

As to her moving, keep an eye out for similar jobs here in TN......might be she would do it if she thinks it was her idea

[Guest PapaB]

Glad to hear she's okay. She must feel violated, helpless and relieved. A real emotional roller coaster. Maybe, after things settle down, she'll realize her life is worth more than Illinois has to offer.

The credit union was on notice after the 2nd robbery. The employees need to sue them for failing to provide a safe work environment. It sounds like they need a big upgrade in security equipment and 2 armed guards.

[Guest FIST]

I'm glad your daughter is fine. I lived 30 minutes from there for most of my life and my mother was a Paramedic in Cahokia for around 15 years. My oldest still lives near there and I worry about it.

How do you convince someone, especially family, that the place they live is a wretched stink hole? How do you do it without pushing them away and causing problems between both sides?

Good luck with getting her to move, and if she decides to move down to TN let me know and I'll help you throw some furniture around.