"This will go to starving children in Mexico" said the armed junkie, extorting cash from a bank-teller in Albuquerque. Unwisely, the FBI dubbed him 'Robin the Hood', promptly endowing him with a mythology, and starting an idiotic fan-club of misfits whose drivel can still be read on social media archives.
The gunman, Byron Chubbuck, felt that his Cherokee-Choctaw descent qualified him as a spokesman for social victims everywhere, declaring himself a Zapatista, after Emiliano Zapata, leader of Mexico's peasant revolt, assassinated in 1919, but ready to return at any moment, according to devout believers in the remote south. Truly we are in legend country here.
The reality, as one might guess, was a little more prosaic. As a member of the city's feared Brewtown gang, Chubbuck was at first shielded from investigation as he continued his run of extortion, but didn't realise that one stack of banknotes was primed to explode, spreading bright red smoke that enabled police to note the number of his car. This was traced to Chubbuck's ex-wife, who denied any knowledge of the robberies.
But the Brewtown gang knew she was under surveillance, and rang up with death-threats. Under pressure, she told the FBI she was ready to talk, turning down their offer of a safe house, since Chubbuck had quit town. But in mid-interview, he suddenly arrives and there's a shoot-out. He is soon caught and sentenced to 40 years, but manages to escape from a van, using a handcuff-key, supplied by a guard who was presumably one of the gang.
It seems to have been vanity that finally did for him, though we can't reveal how.
Still the social media grinds on, full of Mexican unreason and superstition. We're told that he never brandished a gun. No, of course not - just silver-tongued persuasion at the bank counter. Also that he never took drugs, when it was increasingly obvious that he was stoned out of his mind during the later robberies. Only the other year, historians finally concluded that the original Robin Hood never gave to the poor. Chubbuck's claims on this count were rubbished rather quicker than that.
The gunman, Byron Chubbuck, felt that his Cherokee-Choctaw descent qualified him as a spokesman for social victims everywhere, declaring himself a Zapatista, after Emiliano Zapata, leader of Mexico's peasant revolt, assassinated in 1919, but ready to return at any moment, according to devout believers in the remote south. Truly we are in legend country here.
The reality, as one might guess, was a little more prosaic. As a member of the city's feared Brewtown gang, Chubbuck was at first shielded from investigation as he continued his run of extortion, but didn't realise that one stack of banknotes was primed to explode, spreading bright red smoke that enabled police to note the number of his car. This was traced to Chubbuck's ex-wife, who denied any knowledge of the robberies.
But the Brewtown gang knew she was under surveillance, and rang up with death-threats. Under pressure, she told the FBI she was ready to talk, turning down their offer of a safe house, since Chubbuck had quit town. But in mid-interview, he suddenly arrives and there's a shoot-out. He is soon caught and sentenced to 40 years, but manages to escape from a van, using a handcuff-key, supplied by a guard who was presumably one of the gang.
It seems to have been vanity that finally did for him, though we can't reveal how.
Still the social media grinds on, full of Mexican unreason and superstition. We're told that he never brandished a gun. No, of course not - just silver-tongued persuasion at the bank counter. Also that he never took drugs, when it was increasingly obvious that he was stoned out of his mind during the later robberies. Only the other year, historians finally concluded that the original Robin Hood never gave to the poor. Chubbuck's claims on this count were rubbished rather quicker than that.
