ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9703030075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: The Los Angeles Daily News
L.A. POLICE saw Friday's robbery as a terrifying hint of things to come.
They moved with an eerie, almost zenlike calm, squeezing off hundreds of rounds of ammunition with chilling, murderous disdain.
Though utterly outnumbered and shortly to die, the two armed robbers betrayed no obvious panic. Having shown no reluctance to terrorize an entire city, they clearly weren't about to back out of this final, lethal minute with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Watching Friday's bank robbery drama unfold on television, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block felt a profound sense of unreality. He was aghast at the suspects' sheer indifference, both to the havoc they'd unleashed on sunny North Hollywood, and to their own imminent destruction.
``Just the nonchalant way they were firing this semiautomatic weaponry was mind-boggling,'' Block said, speaking just a few hours after the Friday morning firefight which ended with two suspects shot dead, and 10 police officers and at least five civilians injured.
Likening the robbers' brazen recklessness to ``something you'd see in some class-B film,'' the sheriff insisted that this violent episode was unprecedented, ``an aberration.''
``This is a huge leap from where we've been, and let's just hope this isn't the start of a new level of violence,'' Block said.
Many Los Angeles residents are praying that the sheriff is right, while silently fearing that he may be wrong.
If the suspects' serene contempt for human life is spreading on the city's streets, in gang hazing rituals and drug-infested neighborhoods as police believe, then the darkest days may yet lie ahead for the world's bank-robbery capital.
``This is a war, and frankly we're losing,'' said Sgt. Bruce Cowan of the LAPD Devonshire Division. ``This is a wake-up call.''
To the uniformed men and women who patrol L.A.'s streets, the bungled robbery's most ominous feature may have been its high-tech gadgetry.
When the suspects burst from a Bank of America branch in North Hollywood, 10 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, about 9 a.m., they wore ski masks, body armor and bulletproof vests. They bristled with handguns and automatic rifles. They sported ammunition belts with armor-piercing rounds. A backup arsenal rested in the getaway car's trunk.
Summoned to the scene, LAPD officers found themselves trading small-arms fire for blasts capable of tearing apart a truck.
``You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that when these guys are going to heavy caliber, and all we can carry around is a puny 9mm handgun, we're not going to be able to protect the citizens of Los Angeles,'' Cowan said.
``It's like going up against a tank,'' said Sgt. Daniel Carnahan of the LAPD West Valley Division.
Yet perhaps even more alarming than the suspects' weaponry was their cavalier, irrational behavior in the face of a no-win situation.
Pinned behind a line of parked cars, with little protection other than his body armor, the first suspect chose to stand his ground - AK-47 blazing - until he fell under police fire and took a bullet to the head. The second suspect met his fate after playing a deadly game of duck-and-cover between cars as officers closed in from all sides.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. The Los Angeles Police Department armored personnelby CNBcarrier used in shootout. Graphic: Chart by AP.