A passing photographer looked on in disbelief as the meticulous metre man took down the vehicle’s registration details.
“I asked if he hadn’t seen that there had just been a bank robbery,” Thomas Friström told the Kvällsposten newspaper.
“He replied: ‘I couldn’t give a crap?’ I could hardly believe my ears.”
When Friström pointed out that the police had a right to park wherever necessary in an emergency, the parking attendant expressed indifference and walked away.
But the traffic warden’s employer took a different view when informed of the incident.
“After the parking attendant became aware that he had made a mistake, he went back to the police and retracted the fine,” council spokeswoman Charlotte Vahtera told Kvällsposten.
Despite the best efforts of the police, the robber escaped on a red moped with an undisclosed sum of money after holding staff at gunpoint.