1.   Authorities suspect a third person may have been involved in some of the holdups because the robbers sometimes used radio transmitters and spoke to someone outside the bank.

2.   Before moving in, police waited while the robbers used hammers, sledge hammers, and a power tool in a futile effort to pry open the display case.

3.   Investigators also are looking into bank robberies in Kansas City, Mo., and surrounding states earlier this year in which disguised robbers used briefcases filled with explosives.

4.   Officer Kearns said the robber used a pellet gun to threaten his victims.

5.   Others use computers as a tool for committing crimes, the way a bank robber uses a car to make his getaway.

6.   The robbers used the same tactics in all the incidents, police said.

7.   The robber had used it to simulate a weapon, showing tellers the gun butt poking out of his waistband, the police said.

8.   The robbers rarely used violence, Lauer said.

9.   The robbers used their hostages as a shield.

10.   Free State army Lt.-Col. Margaret Neethling said the robbers apparently used a cutting torch to break through burglar bars on a small window of the storeroom.