The AP reports that a 17-year-old girl in Syracuse, New York, robbed a bank by telling bank employees that she had a bomb detonator. According to The Syracuse Post-Standard, Cheyenne Brandon went into an Alliance Bank branch Wednesday morning, holding some sort of device attached to a cord in her hand.

Citing court records, the AP notes that Brandon told the bank employees that she was “going to blow everyone up” unless they gave her money. The teenager was handed $1,395 in cash. The Syracuse Post-Standard says that a police officer spotted Brandon running away from the scene and apprehended her. The 17-year-old girl did not have a bomb detonator or bomb on her person.

Although child crimes, such as this one are rare, they often make headlines when one occurs because of the public’s surprise at the age of the allegeded criminal.

In December, for example, an 11-year-old armed with a pistol attempted to pull off a car jacking in a Portland, Oregon, church parking lot. The 11-year-old boy and his accomplice startled 22-year-old Amy Garrett as she was sitting in her parents’ pickup in the parking lot waiting for them to return.

According to OregonLive.com, Garrett thought the kids were just “being tough guys.” The two boys, however, told her they had a gun and demanded that she hand over the keys to her Ford pickup.

“They were children,” Garrett told The Oregonian. “I didn’t think they’d actually have a real gun.”

The two boys showed her the handle of a .22 caliber handgun and pulled out a box of bullets to convince her that the gun was loaded.

“My heart was racing,” Garrett added.

Fortunately, she was able to put her truck in reverse and speed out of the parking lot just as police officers arrived to arrest the robbery suspects.
“I literally thought I was going to die,” said Garrett. “If the cops hadn’t come right then, I’m sure he would’ve fired it.”

Referring to the incident in Syracuse, New York, Robert McCrie, a professor of security management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, told The Syracuse Post-Standard that young bank robbers are actually very rare.

“Adults are more comfortable in banks than adolescents,” McCrie told the newspaper. “They buy money orders, they cash checks. They have a comfort of what the security is in the bank, the means of entering and exiting.”

However, he pointed out that in recent years, women have realized that they have little chance of physical injury if they rob a bank.

“They have figured out it’s a fairly safe crime to commit,” McCrie posited. “They know that the bank employees are trained to give them a little money and get them out of there as fast as possible. Physical injury to them is not a high possibility.”

This incident comes as the nation is in the midst of a re-energized debate over gun control, following the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conneticut. Gun control advocates want the Obama administration to introduce stricter gun laws because they believe that fewer guns will lead to fewer tragedies such as the ones in Newtown, Aurora and many other cities across the United States. Gun rights advocates, on the other hand, believe better gun safety and armed officers in schools are key to keeping guns out of the hands of children.

Do you think that stricter gun laws would prevent children from using them in crimes or is better parenting needed to prevent such incidents? Sound off in the comments section.