UPDATE: Police Release Photos of Would-Be Bank Robber

Editor's note: Police have released the accompanying photos of the suspect in an attempted robbery Wednesday of an M&I Bank branch in Wauwatosa, as well as an updated description.

Police describe the suspect as a black male in his 20s, approximately 4 feet, 11 inches to 5 feet, 2 inches tall, with a thin to medium build, medium complexion, bald head and wearing a dark blue hoodie at the time.

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Bank robber. We usually think either of a hardened professional criminal or a very desperate person who believes he has little left to lose. Scary people.

But the diminuitive fellow who tried, with no success, to rob a Tosa bank Wednesday was apparently so non-threatening that not one of a number of bank tellers and customers who witnessed his attempt mentioned to police any feeling of fear, or of even faint apprehension, that officers deemed worth recording in their reports.

He walked into the at 7501 W. North Ave. around 4:30 p.m. and, as seen later on video footage, just sort of hung around for a few minutes. He stepped behind a column briefly, and when he reappeared he had scrap of paper in his hand.

He got into a line at one of the teller stations and, after waiting a bit, shuffled forward to the head of the line. A customer interviewed later said the young man, who stood about 4½ feet tall, brushed against him as he moved to his side next to the counter.

A teller told him he needed to wait his turn. So he shuffled back to the end of the line.

Perhaps growing worried or impatient, he stepped forward again after a few minutes to a free teller and unfolded his piece of notebook paper. The teller glanced at it and remembered that it read something to the effect of, “I need money, no dye pack.”

The teller said, “I don’t have that, I have a machine,” – apparently meaning there was no cash at the station and that she was only doing electronic transactions.

But the man said, “I have to have it.” The teller pushed the alarm button and again told him, "I don't have that."

So he shuffled to the next teller, who also turned him away. The first teller then turned to another colleague nearby and said, quietly but audibly, "We're being robbed."

The would-be robber, apparently realizing that there was more to knocking over a bank than just asking for the money, said, "Um, I'll come back for it," and left. He had never showed or so much as even suggested he had a weapon.

He was described by witnesses, and as seen in the video, to be a short, skinny black man in his 20s, somewhere between 4½ and 5 feet tall, weighing 110 to 120 pounds, nearly bald or shaven with some stubble on his head and face, with a small goatee, and, according to several witnesses, having an unusually long face and skull. He was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark pants.

The suspect may have even clumsily left a piece of evidence behind. The bank was locked immediately after he left, and no employee or customer there at the time claimed the key on a pink lanyard an officer found on the floor near where he had been standing.