Twenty five years ago today, at about 9:17 AM Pacific Time, Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. and Decebal Ștefan Emilian “Emil” Mătăsăreanu attempted to hold up a Bank of America branch, located at 6600 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood.
Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were not, to borrow a memorable term from John Hearne, “crackheads with Ravens“. They had previously robbed two other BoA branches and two armored cars. They’d spent a lot of time scoping out the bank and were armed illegally with fully automatic weapons: “two Norinco Type 56 S rifles, a fully automatic Norinco Type 56 S-1, and a fully automatic Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator”. As I understand it, all of these were semi-automatic rifles that had been purchased and then modified to fire full-auto.
They also wore body armor and took drugs before the robbery. These guys were motivated and prepared. They’d taken $1.5 million in the two previous bank robberies, and expected to take about $750,000 in this one.
Sometimes you just get unlucky. The bank had changed procedures and schedules, and there wasn’t as much money there as they expected. Phillips got ticked off and shot up the vault, destroying even more of the money that was there. Then he tried to loot the bank’s automatic teller machine…but, due to a procedural change, the bank manager wasn’t able to open it. (“In the end, the two left with $303,305 and three dye packs which later exploded, ruining the money they stole.”)
They also thought they had eight minutes to pull off the robbery, given their observations of LAPD radio transmissions. However, a patrol unit was actually driving by the bank, saw Phillips and Mătăsăreanu go in, and put out a “211 in progress” radio call. By the time Phillips and Mătăsăreanu finished and went to exit the bank, they were facing multiple LAPD patrol cars and unmarked detective units.
LAPD at the time was armed with 9mm pistols and .38 Special revolvers. (Wikipedia says they were Beretta 92F and 92FS pistols and S&W Model 15 revolvers. However, the LAPD detective in the podcast linked below says he and his partner were carrying S&W 9mm pistols.) There were also some shotguns in the patrol cars, but LAPD wasn’t issuing patrol rifles at the time. So when Phillips and Mătăsăreanu started shooting, and LAPD started shooting back, the police rounds weren’t making it through the crook’s body armor. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were doing a good job of laying down covering fire, and the ranges involved were fairly long, making it hard for the police to go for head shots.
I find the whole thing – the geometry and much of the sequence of events – hard to visualize, in terms of who was where and what the ranges were. Quoting Wikipedia, which has some diagrams:
Police officers went to a “nearby gun store” (A gun store? In LA?) and obtained some AR-pattern rifles (and, I assume, ammo) which they used to shoot back. LAPD SWAT, who were issued AR-15s, arrived on scene 18 minutes after the shooting started.
Mătăsăreanu took at least three hits, and what sounds like a fourth grazing wound, while he was still in the parking lot. He was able to get into a getaway car, get it started, and pulled out of the lot with Phillips walking alongside, firing a HK-91. At some point, Phillips took a round in the shoulder and his HK-91 was disabled by incoming fire. He grabbed one of the Norincos and apparently went one way on foot, while Mătăsăreanu went another direction in the car.
Phillips went down Archwood Street, hid behind a truck, and fired on the police with the Norinco until it jammed. He then pulled out a Beretta 92FS and continued to fire until taking a round in the right hand, which caused him to drop the gun. He picked it up and shot himself in the head with it: at the same time, one of the police officers shot him and severed his spine. (“Either bullet may have been fatal.”)
Mătăsăreanu’s car was shot to heck and wasn’t driveable. He tried to hijack a Jeep (per Wikipedia: it looks like a pickup, but it may have been one of those Jeeps with a bed), and transferred weapons from the getaway car to the Jeep: however, the driver had deactivated the Jeep before fleeing on foot, and Mătăsăreanu couldn’t get it started. The police showed up:
“two and a half minutes of almost uninterrupted gunfire“.
EMTs and ambulances didn’t want to come in until the scene was clear. There were reports of a possible third gunman, and it was obviously a pretty chaotic situation. It took about 70 minutes for medical aid to come in for Mătăsăreanu, and by that time he’d bled to death.
There was a lawsuit from Mătăsăreanu’s family, but the jury hung when it went to trial, and the case was later dismissed.
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know) the department started issuing patrol rifles: first surplus M16s (obtained from DoD) to patrol sergeants, and later as standard issue for all patrol vehicles. They also added Kevlar to the car doors. And, in what seems to me to be an odd development, LAPD also authorized the .45 ACP pistol for general carry. Previously, they’d only been authorized for SWAT. I say “odd” because if 9mm wasn’t getting through the body armor, .45 probably wouldn’t have either, so I don’t understand what difference they thought it would make.
Guns magazine podcast interview with a LAPD detective who was involved in the firefight.
Wikipedia entry. This links to a version of a very detailed memo from (then) Chief Bernard Parks, which is where I think much of the Wiki entry comes from.
National Geographic “Situation Critical” episode:
The LA Police Museum’s North Hollywood Shootout exhibit.
Contemporary news footage from the LA News Archive.
As far as I have been able to tell, there is no good (or even halfway decent) book on the robbery. This seems like a huge gap: some skilled true crime writer is leaving money on the table. If I’m wrong, and someone has done a book, please let me know in comments.
