Would-be robbers display evil at its worst

There are so many senseless acts of violence in our world today that most incidents don't even get much notice unless the death toll is too high to ignore. The attempted bank robbery last week in Norfolk, Neb., was one such assault on innocent lives and on our sense of personal security.

Police said four men, all in their 20s, planned for two weeks to hold up the US Bank branch in the northeast Nebraska town. But when they entered the bank Sept. 26, they started shooting immediately, Within 40 seconds, four bank employees and a customer were dead. Another bank employee was injured.

This grisly story next takes a bizarre twist: The would-be robbers flee the scene -- without taking any money. All four men have been apprehended and charged with five counts of first-degree murder.

What twist of mind would make four young men plan a bank robbery, shoot six people and leave without taking any cash?

The story has taken yet another sad turn with the news that a state trooper had ticketed one of the accused gunmen a week before the robbery for carrying a concealed weapon. The trooper apparently became distraught and committed suicide over not jailing the man on a more serious stolen-weapons charge.

In one small corner of Nebraska, evil has left behind some terrible wounds.