The Stopwatch Gang

Patrick "Paddy" Mitchell, Stephen Reid, and Lionel Wright, collectively known as The Stopwatch Gang, or as The Presidential Robbers, were a trio of Canadian-born bank robbers who mainly operated out of Canada and the United States, from 1974 to 1980.

Paddy Mitchell
Patrick "Paddy" Mitchell was born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1942. Of Irish descent, Mitchell grew up in Preston Street, a hardscrabble neighborhood, where he lived in a basement. He became popular as a bon vivant, being always "well-dressed, well-heeled, and soft-spoken", according to Reid. Mitchell debuted in the criminal underworld as a sort of jack-of-all-trades, and a "brain", helping people who came to him by figuring out ways to commit crimes, although never directly exposing himself. Throughout this period, he essentially lived a double life: he lived with his family, his wife Joan and their young son Kevin, in the suburbs, pretending to be a salesman while, in actuality, he spent all his daytime hanging out at the Belle Claire Tavern, where he met with Stephen Reid and Lionel Wright.

Stephen Reid
Stephen Reid was born in Massey, Ontario, in 1950. He started going to jail at sixteen, being involved in both petty crimes and drugs, and being a drug addict. At about eighteen-nineteen, according to himself, he became a "professional", and started committing bank robberies in Toronto and Ontario, for which he was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. In 1973, on a day pass from Kingston Penitentiary, he managed to elude his counsellor by crawling out of a restaurant's bathroom window. Reid fled to Ottawa, where he met Wright and Mitchell, whom he would later describe as "the unofficial mayor of the local underworld", because of his charismatic attitude.

Lionel Wright
Lionel Wright was born and raised in Ottawa. A shy, quiet, and introverted student, he was working as a night clerk at a trucking firm when he first met Mitchell, with whom he set up a partnership in which Wright routinely pilfered cigarettes, alcohol, candy and other goods from his work, covering his tracks with doctored papers, while Mitchell fenced the stolen property. He was the "details guy", being described by Reid as very brilliant, dependable, and with an amazing memory. He acted as the "caretaker" of his two accomplices' careless and flamboyant lives.

The Ottawa Airport Gold Heist
Mitchell, Reid, and Wright embarked on a year-long crime spree, consisting mostly of petty thefts, before meeting Gary Coutanche, an Air Canada baggage handler who sold electronic calculators he stole from work. At the Bell Claire Tavern, Gary and the trio came up with the plan to commit one of the biggest robberies in Canada's history. Coutanche told Mitchell of gold shipments which monthly passed through the Ottawa airport on their way to the mint, and of how security was relaxed. He also accepted to let Mitchell know when the next shipping was scheduled to arrive in exchange for money. On April 17, 1974, the gold would have arrived from the Red Lake mines to the airport. In order to enter the guarded warehouse where the gold was being kept, the gang employed a ruse in which Reid pretended to be an Air Canada employee. As soon as the security guard, David Braham, opened the door, Reid held him at gunpoint and brought with him the gold, worth $750.000 (the equivalent, today, of about $5.000.000).

The authorities, however, immediately thought of an inside job, and focused on Coutanche because he was already suspected of theft and was involved with Mitchell. In return for leniency, Coutanche accepted to wear a wire in order to aid the investigators build a case against the gang. In March 1975, Mitchell, Reid, and Wright were all arrested for the robbery and for cocaine trafficking, which they also conducted with help from Coutanche. Mitchell and Wright were both sentenced to seventeen years for trafficking (Mitchell's sentence was increased by three years for possession of the stolen gold). Reid was sentenced to ten years for the robbery, along with all the time he still owed.

Prison Escapes and Later Crimes in the U.S.
In October 1976, Wright escaped from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre and fled to Florida, United States. Reid and Mitchell, who had acted like model prisoners and had been transferred to a less secure facility, followed in 1979: Reid was able to again walk out of a restaurant's bathroom's window while on a day pass. Mitchell went as far as to simulate a heart attack by drinking a self-made nicotine concoction (almost killing himself), being later brought away from the hospital by Reid and Wright, disguised as orderlies, who handcuffed the guards together in the ambulance.

In Florida, the trio began their lives as fugitives, embarking on a string of bank robberies across the United States. This time, in order to avoid getting caught again, they meticulously planned every heist, down to how many steps it was from the curb to the bank to the teller to the vault. They also precisely timed every robbery, spending no more than two minutes or less inside the banks. Because of the stopwatch they employed during their crimes (most of the times worn by Reid around his neck), they became known by the FBI as "The Stopwatch Gang", while it was for their habit of wearing full masks of deceased former presidents (Richard Nixon, Donald Reagan...) that they came to be also known as "The Presidential Robbers". During the course of their spree, the gang did routinely one or two hundred thousand dollars per score, which they mainly spent at Las Vegas casinos. According to the Bureau, they approximately committed up to 140 robberies in total, during the course of which not a single civilian, bank staff member, or security guard was hurt.

While the rest of the trio, when they were not robbing banks, spent a rather ordinary and domestic lifestyle, Paddy was more of a party animal, getting high on drugs, and having fun creating stories about himself with people he knew, which attracted attention and didn't like to Reid and Wright. Anyway, looking for a place where they could retire some day, Mitchell, Reid, and Wright rented a house in Oak Creek Canyon, near Sedona, Arizona, which became their hideout. They enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle and also, quite ironically, became very good friends with local police officers. The gang committed their last big score on September 23, 1980, at the San Diego Bank of America branch, leaving with $283.000 ($1 million dollars today) just dropped from an armored truck. At the time, that was the largest bank robbery ever committed in California, and the most fruitful for the trio.

Arrests and Later Years
Discarded money bags from the San Diego heist were eventually recovered by a homeless man, who brought them to the authorities hoping to get a reward. Police was able to obtain fingerprints of two members of the gang from the bags. On top of that, Donny Hollingsworth, a Canadian former halfback who had helped the gang since the 1974 gold heist, and was now being held for running a crystal meth operation outside San Diego, which had caused the death of at least one man, accepted to give the FBI the Stopwatch Gang in exchange for leniency. On October 31, 1980, both Reid and Wright were arrested at the Arizona hideout, while Mitchell, who was elsewhere at that time, went on the lam. He kept committing bank robberies by himself, until he was finally caught, before again escaping prison and fleeing to the Philippines, where he remarried and had a son. In 1993, his neighbours, who had seen an America's Most Wanted show about him, alerted the FBI, at which point Mitchell returned to the U.S., again started committing bank robberies, and was again arrested, on February 22, 1994, after another robbery in Missisippi. He again unsuccessfully attempted to escape.



While in prison, Mitchell wrote his autobiography: The Bank Robber's Life. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006, and eventually died on January 14, 2007, at 64, at the Federal Correction Complex in Butner, North Carolina. He ended his last letter to Reid, written around Christmas, with: "We've had a life, haven't we?" Reid too, who was sentenced to twenty years along with Wright, turned to writing while in prison, publishing his first novel, Jackrabbit Parole, based on his life as a robber, in 1986, the same year in which he married poet Susan Musgrave, with whom he corresponded while behind bars. Released in 1987, he became addicted to cocaine and heroin and again committed a bank robbery in 1999. He was again released in February 2014, dying in 2018 of natural causes. Wright was released in 1994, eventually deciding to remain in the prison system, working as a clerk. A book by author Greg Weston, titled The Stopwatch Gang, was published in 1992.

Modus Operandi
After first escaping from prison, Mitchell, Reid, and Wright began meticulously planning every single bank robbery they committed, in order to avoid getting caught again. They would usually target banks which were close to the road, with at least two access points, and big glass windows with southern sunlight exposure, in order for the sun to turn the windows into two-way mirrors, avoiding passers-by alerting the authorities. They would wear full masks, such as former presidents masks or Star Wars helmets. Another trick they employed was to add to their outfits a remarkable detail, such as a sticker, so that bank employees and civilians would remember just that particularity and nothing else of their appearance. The gang usually stayed in the bank for two minutes or less (it was their use of stopwatches that earned them their nickname), with a getaway driver, listening to a police scanner, waiting outside and ready to hit the road.

Known Victims

 * Unspecified dates in the late 60s: several victimless bank robberies in Toronto and Ontario committed by Reid
 * Unspecified dates in 1973: several victimless petty thefts committed by the gang
 * April 17, 1974: the Ottawa Airport gold heist: David Braham, 24
 * November 1979: unspecified Kingston hospital, Ontario: two unnamed prison guards
 * September 23, 1980: a victimless robbery at the San Diego Bank of America
 * Unspecified dates from October 31, 1980, to February 22, 1994: several victimless bank robberies committed by Mitchell while on the run
 * Unspecified date in 1999: Victoria, British Columbia: a victimless bank robbery committed by Reid
 * At least 139 other victimless bank robberies committed by the gang across the United States

On Criminal Minds

 * Season Five:
 * "Retaliation" - While yet to be directly referenced in the show, the gang might have been a source of inspiration for the episode's unsub, Dale Schrader - Both the gang members and Schrader were prolific bank robbers and escapists who were sold out at least one time by an accomplice. He had some connection with Canada, and the actor who portrays Schrader, Lee Tergesen, also starred in the 1991 film Point Break, which was partly based off of the Stopwatch Gang's exploits.
 * Season Seven:
 * "Hit" and "Run" - The Stopwatch Gang may have provided some inspiration for the episodes' unsubs, The Face Cards - Both were team of highly organized bank robbers with almost the same number of members, wore iconic masks, and precisely timed their heists in order to remain inside the banks for two minutes only.