North Hollywood shootout

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This story has many conflicting official reports. In a gun battles this big, it is hard to clear up everything, even ten years after the fact. As evidenced by the following links, no one has the same story. What is written here is probably the most accurate portrayal of the events as they unfolded. Attention must still be given to clarity and readability, but the events are most likely right, compiled from many sources, including police interviews, police dispatcher interviews, and full length video of the event, including internal security cameras.

The North Hollywood shootout was an armed confrontation between two heavily-armed and armored bank robbers (Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu) and patrol and SWAT officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on February 28, 1997, at a Bank of America teller-office.

The shootout resulted in the wounding of fourteen people (twelve police officers and two civilians) and the deaths of both bank robbers. Although only the suspects were killed, the sheer number of injuries made this one of the bloodiest single cases of violent crime in the 1990s, and one of the most significant single bank robberies of the 20th century.

Contents 1 Background 1.1 The robbers 1.2 The robbery 2 The shootout 2.1 Inside the Bank 2.2 Shootout 2.3 The getaway 2.4 Outcome 3 The Weapons 4 Facts 5 Aftermath 5.1 Ten Years Later 6 Popular culture 7 Sources 8 External links

[edit] Background

[edit] The robbers

The bank robbers were Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu. They were both bodybuilders.

Larry Phillips was, by trade, a real estate salesman. Twenty-six years old at the time of the shootout, Phillips had a wife and two children. Emil Matasareanu grew up in a mental home run by his mother; as a young man he was seriously injured by a blow from one of the patients. Matasareanu suffered epilepsy and had brain surgery a few weeks prior to the heist; his job was listed as an unsuccessful software designer.

The two men had robbed several banks prior to the robbery at Laurel Canyon. They were able to steal over USD $1.6 million in total: in the early 1990s they held up an armored car in Denver, obtaining $23,000. Several years later Phillips and Matasareanu robbed another armored car for $125,000. Their next robbery was a failure; the armored car they attempted to stop kept driving and the robbers were forced to abandon the heist. Several weeks later they robbed a Bank of America for over $750,000. Their next robbery took place in front of the bank where they robbed the second armored car; this time the gunmen netted over $790,000.

Phillips fashioned arm and leg guards with the Kevlar from several armor vests; the protection swathed him from neck to ankles and weighed nearly 42 pounds. The armor itself was at least 4 level IIIA XL vests: in the pictures of the gunmen exiting the bank, one can see two halves of one vest wrapped around Phillips' legs, two more around his thighs, two on his arms, one on his torso, and a groin protector on his waist. The vests, contrary to popular belief, were not cut up and sewn together, as Kevlar is extremely hard to cut; they were held together with velcro straps which were already on the vests. Cutting a woven Kevlar material will break the outer seal causing it to fray and lose most of its protective quality [1]

Matasareanu also wore body armor, but it was poorly fashioned; his armor did not cover his arms and legs, but he had a trauma plate to protect his vital organs.

[edit] The robbery

At 9:15 a.m., Phillips and Matasareanu robbed a Bank of America branch office in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Just before entering the bank, both robbers ingested phenobarbitol, a barbituate-muscle relaxant. The medication was probably Matasareanu's, as he was an epileptic, and the medication was used for anti-seizure medication. They may have taken it for its physically calming side-effects. "Pill courage".

Ten employees and thirty-two customers were present during the robbery. Phillips and Matasareanu managed to steal USD $303,305. One customer was injured when one of the robbers hit him in the head with the stock of an AK-47. A citizen passing near the bank noticed the robbers entering the bank and flagged down a patrol car, Unit 15A43 of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Inside the bank, Phillips kept watch in the lobby while Matasareanu, after opening the protective barrier with his firearm, forced the manager to open the vault and fill a suitcase with $303,305. However, the two men had expected more. What they didn't know was that their previous robberies had caused the banks in the area to change their money delivery times, so that they were less predictable. The expected armored car delivery had not occurred that day.

"Where's the rest?" Matasareanu asked the bank manager. When he learned that there was no more money, he demanded the manager open the ATMs, which contained tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Bank of America ATMs were no longer accessible to on-site bank employees, so the manager was unable to open them. Matasareanu tried to shoot open the safe, but this only froze the lock completely, making it impossible to open at all.^{[citation needed]}

After collecting the money, Phillips and Matasareanu locked all customers and employees in the vault and left the bank.

[edit] The shootout

[edit] Inside the Bank

The first shots of the day were fired as soon as the suspects entered the bank. One of them unloaded a full 30 round magazine from his AK-47 into the ceiling, immediately immobilizing all persons in the bank. Matasareanu then used his firearm to open the barrier that separated the customers from the cashiers and the vault. A second burst was released when Matasareanu saw how little money there was in the vault. Matasareanu used a third spray of fire attempting to open the ATM.

After eight minutes they decided to leave with the money that they had, less than half the haul they expected.

Larry Phillips emerged at 9:38 a.m. PST through the north door of the Bank of America. His partner Emil Matasareanu appeared through the south door a few seconds later. Both stared at the police in disbelief, just becoming aware that the police were involved. The police were initially armed with Beretta 92FS 9 mm pistols, .38 Special revolvers, as well as Remington and Ithaca 12-gauge pump-action shotguns.

[edit] Shootout

Standing in the doorway of the bank, Phillips raised his Romanian-made AK-47 assault rifle and began spraying at police officers positioned on the north side of the bank. The two gunmen used Full metal jacket bullet cartridges, fully capable of penetrating cars, walls, and the soft body armor of the police.

Matasareanu, dragging the suitcase of money behind him, suddenly noticed that red smoke was spewing from inside it. The robbers had picked up three dye packs. The money ruined, Matasareanu abandoned it and began firing from the south side of the bank.

Police from all over Los Angeles were now flocking to the chaotic scene following a "TAC-ALert" call.

Rookie officer James Zboravan, taking cover behind a locksmith's kiosk directly across the street from the bank--and directly in both gunmen's lines of fire--waited until Phillips had turned around, then fired at him several times with his shotgun, striking him with nine buckshot pellets in the back of his armor, leaving him unscathed.

Phillips turned and fired at the kiosk, and at the officers hiding behind and around it. Zboravan was hit by two of Phillips' rounds in his lower back and buttocks as he dove to cover two other unarmored officers who were with him. Detective John Krulac, also behind the kiosk, was hit in the ankle. "It felt like somebody just took and whacked me with a hammer," he said of the shrapnel that entered his leg. As Phillips and Matasareanu continued to fire, Zboravan and Krulac abandoned their position behind the kiosk and moved around constantly to avoid Phillips' fire. "Phillips," Krulac said, "would take turns shooting from car to car, and we'd run from car to car." Eventually the two officers managed to enter a dentist's office across from the bank, where the dentist and his nurse treated their wounds with the materials they had on hand.

Still in front of the bank, Phillips and Matasareanu continued firing. The scene was now completely out of the control of the police; Phillips and Matasareanu were firing at anything that shot at them. Many police officers did not even fire when they got the chance, as they knew it would only provoke a hail of bullets.

"He never forgot where you were," Sgt. Dean Haynes said of Phillips. "If you shot at him, he'd just turn and spray fifty rounds at you. He was like a bear in a beehive; our rounds just didn't seem to be bothering him."

Matasareanu, however, was not protected by neck to toe body armor. He wore only a kevlar vest with a trauma plate. About fifteen minutes into the shootout, Matasareanu received a gunshot wound to his leg, at which time he disappeared into the getaway car, a white Chevrolet Celebrity. However, he continued to fire bursts through the car's windows.

Meanwhile, Phillips continued firing. He wounded Officer Martin Whitfield, who took cover behind a tree. Whitfield bled for nearly half an hour before the besieged police force finally reached him. He was taken to a nearby hospital and made a satisfactory recovery.

Several officers and detectives, including detective Vince Bankraft, began firing at Phillips from behind a cement wall at the rear of the bank. Phillips had now moved to the north side of the bank, where several cars were lined up in the parking lot, including the Chevy that Matasareanu was sitting in. When Bankraft and the other police and detectives fired at him, Phillips turned.

"He just turned and looked at me like, 'Who the hell are you?" Bankraft later said. Phillips opened up on the line of police behind the wall. His rounds sprayed fragments of the wall everywhere, stopping the fire. Phillips then calmly looked at the stopwatch which he had sewn into his glove. As police and detectives began to fire on him again, he picked up his AK-47 and began walking down the line of cars, firing bursts from his rifle as he did so.

As Phillips continued to spray a police car at the intersection, a shotgun blast narrowly missed his head. He crouched down behind a white sports car to reload his weapon. Standing up again, he began firing bursts at the police directly opposite the bank, then walked over to the rear of the bank and fired at the detectives behind the wall, who had resumed firing at him. A round hit him directly in the chest, nearly knocking him over. When Phillips recovered, he seemed much more wary of the gunfire. His rifle clutched in one hand, Phillips moved to the Chevy that Matasareanu was sitting inside. Opening the trunk, he threw his AK-47 inside and retrieved a new weapon--an illegally converted full-auto HK-91 rifle.

"Suspect has retrieved additional weapons from the trunk of his vehicle!" the police radio informed officers. Phillips began firing randomly with the HK-91, taking a particular interest in the officers just across the street from him. He fired several rounds, then dropped the weapon to his side and wiped his brow. The two gunmen were wearing body armor, all colored black; the day was very hot even for a man in a T-shirt.

Phillips walked over to the car, opened the door, and reached inside, but a round from detective Bankraft distracted him. The detective had been firing at Phillips; one of his rounds, a ricochet, struck the gunman's hand. Phillips began shooting again, walking around behind the cars and alternating between firing and ducking behind the cars to reload. At one point, Phillips was nearly hit by a blast that exploded the window of a nearby station wagon. He ducked and crouched down, firing on one knee at the officer who had shot at him.

As news helicopters from all around Los Angeles buzzed overhead, Phillips continued to fire wildly. Finally a helicopter from KCAL seemed to distract him. On live television, in front of millions of stunned people, Phillips lined up his weapon and began firing at the very news helicopter that was taping him. In the video of the incident, bullet trails can be seen bursting from the rifle. Finally Phillips stood up and reloaded.

[edit] The getaway

Matasareanu suddenly began backing the car out of the parking space he had been idling it in. Phillips, seeing this, grabbed his extra ammo drums off a car hood where he had been keeping them. Emil Matasareanu drove the car up to the side of the bank and started shooting bursts at the police officers trying to stop them, while Phillips hurried over to him, firing as he went. As he approached the trunk of the car, Phillips ducked to avoid gunfire and then emptied the magazine, reloaded, and continued firing. A round struck his shoulder, immobilizing his left arm and most of the left side of his torso. But Phillips continued to fire the three-foot-long rifle one-handed. He moved to the door of the car twice, but each time he returned to the trunk. Finally he tossed the HK-91 into the trunk and armed himself with a Norinco Chinese Type 56 Assault Rifle.

While Phillips tried to load the weapon one-handed--his right arm was still not moving correctly, as the video tapes reveal--Matasareanu leaned over and opened the passenger side door of the car. He seemed to want Phillips to get in, but instead Phillips shut the door and walked beside the car. He had apparently decided to provide cover fire for his partner.

The car and the gunman--police on their radios were referring to Phillips as "The Pedestrian"--moved away from the bank, all the way to the edge of the parking lot. Phillips, who had been carrying a second drum magazine, threw it onto the top of the car and began shooting again. Then a round struck his chest, and he grabbed the drum and walked over to a champagne-colored sedan to reload. Phillips walked back to the car a minute later, firing and kept walking. He had already sustained a wound that would have been eventually fatal to him; a round had severed his subclavian artery. It is quite possible that Phillips decided to buy time for Emil to escape by sacrificing himself. Whatever Phillips was thinking, he seemed calm and collected as he ducked behind a tractor trailer on a street near the bank, allowing Matasareanu to drive past him. Thanks to Phillips's suppressive fire, Emil drove right past the police at the end of the street, continuing on.

Meanwhile, Phillips was on the move again. He passed within feet of an abandoned police car, and began to fire again. However, Phillips suddenly realized that his Type 56 was jammed. An ejected shell casing had caught in the weapon, resulting in a stovepipe jam and Phillips was apparently unable to clear it. He dropped the gun on the ground and pulled a 9mm Beretta 92F from his jacket. He fired two rounds with this, then walked out from the cover of the trailer and fired again. As he fired a fourth shot, a round struck his hand, causing him to fumble and drop the pistol. Phillips bent down, picked up the handgun, and shot himself in the throat. It is unknown whether this was deliberate or accidental. The officer standing in front of him believed that he killed himself accidentally as he tried to reload his pistol one-handed. He died instantly. Several rounds from other LAPD officers also struck him after he went down.

Matasareanu, further up the street, continued on. It is unclear whether or not he knew his partner was dead. Matasareanu tried to stop a red sedan. A large number of civilians were still driving around the streets, unaware of what was happening--but the car drove away. Matasareanu then began shooting at a knot of detectives who were attempting to fire at him from a side street. The Chevy's tires were shot out by the detectives, and Matasareanu limped around and got back into his car. He began driving slowly up the street, trying to stop cars that he ran into. Finally he came head-to-head with a surplus Kaiser Jeep pickup truck. When Matasareanu fired his weapon in the general direction of the truck, the driver began backing up, then got out and fled to a nearby house. Matasareanu drove up next to the truck, got out, and then got back in his car again. He inched the car forward a bit--he had been unable to open the door, as they were too close together--and got back out, tossing his garage door opener into the truck as he passed it. Matasareanu then limped over to the Chevy's trunk and retrieved a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, equipped with a 100-round Beta C-mag drum magazine. He threw this into the truck as well, then turned back to get another weapon from the trunk. A police cruiser containing three LAPD SWAT officers began driving towards him. Matasareanu raised his weapon and fired several rounds, then got into the Jeep. Matasareanu didn't know that the driver had a kill switch in his vehicle which disabled the electrical system. The driver flipped this switch before he fled. Even if there had been no kill switch, the fleeing driver had taken the keys with him. After unsuccessfully trying to start the truck several times, Matasareanu finally gave up and exited the vehicle just as the SWAT unit stopped ten yards away. The officers had been driving down the street expecting to evacuate some of the wounded. Instead, they wound up face to face with Matasareanu.

Running behind the hood of the Chevy, Matasareanu used it as a shield as he began firing wildly with his AR-15. At the same time, SWAT officers, jumping out of their car and hiding behind it, dove under their car and began firing at Matasareanu's unprotected legs. Finally Matasareanu stopped shooting, and lowered his weapon. SWAT continued to shoot at him. Suddenly Matasareanu hoisted his weapon up and sprayed the cars with a burst of gunfire.

SWAT officers lay on the ground and began shooting Matasareanu's feet and legs, which were unarmored. Other police officers began firing from the side streets and even houses where they had been taking cover. Finally Matasareanu collapsed, his rifle going off into the pavement as he staggered and fell against the hood of his getaway car. Eventually Matasareanu was hit so many times that he could no longer shoot and was forced to drop his weapon altogether.

When SWAT stopped shooting, they moved in carefully on the injured gunman, who was directing obscenities at the SWAT officers, the LAPD, and police in general.

One SWAT officer kicked Emil's gun away from him, and it is alleged that Emil was beaten (discussed below). Finally the SWAT officers were called to search for more gunmen, and officers John Futrell and James Vojtecky were assigned to guard Matasareanu.

[edit] Outcome

During the shootout, a total of twelve officers,eight civilians, and one civilian dog^[1], were wounded (although only two severely), and the two gunmen (Phillips and Matasareanu) were killed; Phillips was shot 11 times and Matasareanu was shot 29 times. Only two people were seriously injured during the entire firefight, apart from the gunmen. Officer Martin Whitfield (Ret.) was shot in the leg and was unconscious when he was rescued by police in an armored car and taken to a nearby hospital. He survived his wounds.

The LAPD was later criticized for refusing to allow Matasareanu to receive medical attention, which could have been life-saving; the department countered by stating that ambulance personnel were following standard procedure in hostile situations by not entering "the hot zone", as Matasareanu was still considered to be dangerous. In addition, there were also onlooker reports of other suspects in the area, which further delayed the ambulance response. These reports were later determined by the authorities to be sightings of plainclothes police officers wearing body armor.

Another version of the tale has been told by LAPD officer James Vojtecky, who was one of the officers assigned to the scene where Matasareanu was being held. According to Officer Vojtecky, he instructed other officers "Don't let this man move. He's trying to bleed out on us. He's trying to kill himself."

During the trial, the lawyer of Matasareanu's children, Stephen Yagman, showed jurors a news videotape that showed two police officers slapping hands in a congratulatory gesture; one of the officers then kicks the handcuffed suspect. A photo taken by a press photographer--who had managed get so close that Matasareanu had begun yelling curse words at him--showed Officer John Futrell smirking as he pushed Matasareanu's face into the pavement.

Both stories have been hotly disputed both in and out of court. It is unclear what really happened to Matasareanu.

This shooting bore similarities to both an actual earlier shootout in Norco, California on May 9, 1980 and a fictional incident in the movie Heat. There was speculation that Phillips and Matasareanu used Heat as a training film. The opening scenes from the movie S.W.A.T. were based on this event, including segments of actual police radio transmissions recorded during the incident interspersed with original audio.

[edit] The Weapons

Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu had a large array of firearms, which included:

• • HK91: Used by Phillips as he fired at officers on the left side of the bank, the rifle itself took a hit to the bolt guide rails, which caused little damage.

• • Type 56 Assault Rifle: Used by Phillips after discarding the HK91, as he started the escape. The rifle jammed.

• • AK47s: Both Phillips and Matasareanu used these rifles during the robbery.

• • Bushmaster AR15: Matasareanu retrieved this rifle from the trunk of their getaway car after sustaining a leg wound. He then waited in the car for Phillips, while shooting through the windows. This was also the rifle used by Matasareanu as he was engaged in his last shootout with SWAT officers.

• • Beretta 92 9mm pistol: Phillips committed suicide with this weapon after sustaining several gunshot wounds.

[edit] Facts

• Approximately 370 LAPD officers were called to the scene.
• Other than the LAPD, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and units of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) responded to the scene. In the MVP documentary film, the LAPD sergeant being interviewed discusses the roles of those agencies as well as LA Airport PD, Burbank PD and LA School PD. Off-duty LAPD officers came in prior to the announcement of city-wide TAC-ALERT, which activates all personnel on duty. Members of the LAPD training at the Valley area police academy as well as the main LA police academy located in Elysian Park also responded. SWAT officers also responded from the police academy. One response was from Chief Willie Williams, who came from Parker Center, the LAPD's headquarters, located downtown.
• The following year, seventeen LAPD officers were awarded Medals of Valor from the department for their actions and bravery during the shootout. They were:
  • Police Sergeant I. Medina
  • Police Detective Tracy Angeles
  • Police Detective V. Bancroft
  • Police Detective T. Culotta
  • Police Detective K. Harley
  • Police Officer III D. Anderson
  • Police Officer E. Brentlinger
  • Police Officer III A. Cabunoc
  • Police Officer III John Caprarelli
  • Police Officer E. Dominguez
  • Police Officer III Steve Gomez
  • Police Officer III Rick. Massa
  • Police Officer C. Perriguey
  • Police Officer T. Schmitz
  • Police Officer C. Torrez
  • Police Officer J. Zboravan
  • Police Officer R. Zielinski

• Three officers committed suicide years after the shooting. Some others sought help with depression as a result of the shootout.

[edit] Aftermath

The incident highlighted the growing divergence between the means available to the police and the offensive and defensive technologies employed by criminals. Video footage of the incident clearly shows police pistol bullets striking the suspects with little or no effect, largely due to the body armor worn by the suspects. Their body armor was able to stop the .38 caliber and 9 mm projectiles fired by the officers' service handguns.

The ineffectiveness of the pistol rounds in penetrating the suspects' body armor led to a trend in the United States towards arming selected police patrol officers with .223 caliber/5.56 mm AR-15s semiautomatic rifles. This provided first responders with greater ability to effectively confront and neutralize heavily armed and armored criminals.

Advocates of gun control in the United States cited the incident as evidence that U.S. gun control laws were inadequate to prevent military-class weaponry ending up in the hands of prior felons. Opponents of gun control counter that as the weapons had been obtained illegally, the incident did not indicate that criminal use of legally registered fully automatic firearms was a problem.

The LAPD patrol officers were not adequately armed or protected to deal with such criminals. The gunmen were firing rifle rounds from illegally-modified fully automatic assault rifles while being protected by full body armor. The officers' handguns and shotguns could not penetrate the suspects' armor, while the suspects' weapons were capable of severely wounding officers and bystanders through cement walls and automobiles.

The family of Emil Matasareanu sued the LAPD for wrongful death because of the LAPD's refusal to allow the ambulances arriving on the scene to treat him. After a hung jury in the first trial, the Matasareanu family dropped the suit.

[edit] Ten Years Later

The City of Los Angeles commemorated the tenth anniversary of the shootout by having a candle light vigil and displaying the vehicles involved in the shootout at the Bank of America branch, including the getaway vehicle Chevrolet Celebrity and the damaged LAPD patrol cars. [2] [3] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed February 28 as "Law Enforcement Day."

[edit] Popular culture

• 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out is a made-for-TV movie based on the shootout. It stars Michael Madsen and Ron Livingston
• 2005 documentary Shootout! North Hollywood Shootout and Zero Hour created by the History Channel describing the event in detail, with interviews from the involved police officers.
• North Hollywood Shootout documentary by Music Video Productions (MVP) (mostly interviews).
• In the opening scenes of the action film S.W.A.T., weapons, location, events, TV footage, and dialogue from LAPD radio communications of the shootout were all closely mimicked. (A deleted scene in the movie also included police officers running into a gun store to purchase M16 assault rifles citing the ineffective weaponry they had been supplied.)
• A video was produced by the POST training association that contained the entire video of the shootout; however this video is not available to the public.
• Comedian Ron White mocks the LAPD's handling of shootout in his album Drunk in Public.

[edit] Sources

• North Hollywood LAPD's radio traffic frequency
• Nancy J. Rigg. Maintaining Control. Retrieved on 2006-06-29. Transcript of portions of separate police frequencies referring to the North Hollywood shootout.
• Los Angeles Police Department - 1998 Medal of Valor Recipients (1998). Retrieved on 2006-06-29.
• A three minute and 38 second clip from Google Video -- [4]

[edit] External links

• Radio recording & summary
• World's Wildest Police Videos episode of the shootout