Bank Bandits Die In Firefight Ten Cops Hurt In Hourlong Gunbattle

Dressed in black body armor and toting automatic weapons, two bandits shot up a North Hollywood bank Friday morning, then were cut down outside by police officers in a running firefight whose transfixing horror was caught live, for all the city to watch, by helicopter news cameras.

Thousands of rounds flew in the gunbattle, which raged for the better part of an hour. It left 10 police officers and five passers-by injured, some hit by bullets, others hurt while speeding to and from the scene in cars. All were expected to recover.

One of the robbers was killed when he advanced determinedly on crouching police officers, brazen as only someone clad in armor could be, his gun jerking as he squeezed off shot after shot.

A sharpshooter took him down with a round to his masked head, the impact readily visible to the thousands of Angelenos who by then had tuned in to what many initially must have thought could only be another television movie.

The other robber was killed as he skittered among some parked cars, loosing bursts from his assault-type rifle at ducking and dodging police officers and civilians alike, then calmly loading magazines into his weapon.

When he fired, his rounds could be seen slamming into police cruisers and buildings. As the police fired back, the glass in the cars he was hiding behind exploded in all directions.

After what seemed like hours of this deadly hide-and-seek, he was cut down from behind by officers he apparently never spotted.

“These guys were ready for war,” said Bob McKibben, an appliance store manager who saw much of the gunbattle. Besides the body armor and black masks, he said, the robbers wore ammunition pouches.

Police thought at first that as many as five men might have been involved in the botched heist, and they expressed deep concern that during much of the firefight the city’s officers were outgunned because most carried only handguns or shotguns.

But after a search, the officials said, there was a good possibility that only two bandits were involved.

And on second thought, the officials said there was no way to equip every officer with the kind of heavy firepower carried by the bandits.

“I don’t think there is a single police department in the country arming officers with the likes of AK-47s,” Chief Willie Williams said at a news conference outside the bank.

When he was asked whether more than two bandits might have been involved, Williams said, “We don’t know beyond the two that there is anybody else out there.”

As he spoke, a special search team was packing up its gear after using a battering ram to force a way into a nearby building that initially was thought to harbor a suspect but turned out to be empty.

The police department’s chief spokesman, Cmdr. Tim McBride, said the bandits were not part of any militia group or special organization.

The authorities did not say how much money, if any, the bandits took. But it was clear that by the time they were leaving, the alarm had sounded and police were closing in.

Then, the shooting started.

The police tried to keep the bandits from escaping the bank but were initially outgunned.

“There was a car outside with guns in the back of the trunk,” said passerby Armando Jimenez, “and they kept shooting out, getting a new one and going back in, going out again, getting a new gun and shooting again - so many guns I couldn’t count.”

Eventually the bandits shot their way clear of the bank and even managed to get several blocks away, running and dodging, now on foot, now in a commandeered car. But there was no final escape, only death, as police reinforcements arrived and turned the tide.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BY THE NUMBERS Statistics from the gunfight after Friday’s bank robbery: Dead: 2. Injured: 15. Number of officers involved: 200-plus. Number of freeways temporarily closed: 2. Number of people evacuated: hundreds. Number of people who locked themselves in bank vault: 14. Size of manhunt search area: 8 square blocks. Number of mail deliveries disrupted: 3,893. - Associated Press