Talk:North Hollywood shootout/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Type of rifle borrowed by police from gun store

I haven't found a good cite regarding the type of rifle the police retrieved from the gun store, but to the best of my knowledge, they were AR-15s, semi-automatic "civilian" versions of the M-16 full-auto military rifle. M-16s are rare among civilians, cost around $20,000 each as of this writing, and are not typically sitting around in quantity on your average gun store shelf. WeedWhacker 20:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

If you go to your nearest gunstore (not a Wal-Mart, that won't work) you'll see about 10-15 AR-15's. The price of a real, full auto M-16 is $10-20,000, but an AR-15 can go for $750-3,000.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=68846780 http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=68340389

If you listen to the dispatch audio, available on www.freqofnature.com, 15L40 and another unit state that they have 'retrieved several AR-15's' and are able to engage the suspects. By they time they had procured these weapons, One suspect was dead, and Metro was engaging the final suspect.

No legally used full-auto weapons used in crime?

I'd like to see a reference for the following statement, "to date there has been no recorded commission of a crime with a legally-registered fully automatic firearm by the legal owner - a few stolen weapons have been used by criminals." I won't edit it, but it seems like something that should have a reference. - johndodd

I distinctly remember that one of the robbers was armed with a g3 or hk91 clone, anybody have images of this incident that can confirm this? - nitrogensixteen

Heh. I was actually involved in this shootout. I can confirm this 100%. It was a G3A4. - LAPD85

Suspects? Gunmen?

I'm not too sure about all the references to Phillips and Matasareanu as 'suspects' and 'gunmen' - 'suspects' seems inappropriate since their guilt is not disputed, and 'the two gunmen' ignores the fact that the officers who returned fire were also gunmen, in the strictest sense. TheMadBaron 10:13, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

How about "perpetrators" or "criminals"? "Scrote", "slag", "toe rag", "skaghead", "skell", "scumbag" and "mutt" are probably not appropriate for Wikipedia :) However, I believe "suspects" is still appropriate, as it is common usage in law enforcement reports and articles. See this article discussing another infamous modern-day shootout (FBI 1986 Miami shootout): http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs7.htm GMan552

It is common usage. but it's also very lazy usage. I much prefer 'perps' or 'crims', but I can't help thinking that there's a better way to phrase this for the context.

I had a quick look at the article you've linked to, and I don't think it's quite the same thing.... the article establishes from the ouset that the criminals involved in the shootout are, indeed, merely suspects with regard to robberies commited earlier.... their guilt, with regard ro the robberies, at least, may be safely assumed, but is not firmly established at the time of the shootout, which justifies the use of the term thereafter.TheMadBaron 11:21, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I see your point, but the point I was trying to make was that the FBI report on the Miami shootings (in italics in the linked page) uses the term "suspects", despite the report being written after the shootout, where their guilt was more than proven.

In my latest edit of the North Hollywood article, I've tried to use the criminals' last names as much as possible. GMan552

A person is a suspect until they are adjudicated as guilty in a court of law. This is a proper usage, and in now way 'sloppy.'

The above statement is crap. A person who is charged is a defendant and no longer a suspect. A suspect is someone who the police believe to be involved in a crime. But on the video we are not seeing "suspects" we are seeing perpetrators. The gunment—yes, that's a proper term for these guys and not a realistic way of referring to the police—are clearly seen firing weapons. There's nothing that needs to be "suspected" here. The worst use of the word "suspect" is by hack TV reporters who will say that "the suspect robbed the store." A suspect in that crime might have robbed the store, but the person who actually robbed the store is the perpetrator.

I was always under the impression that the term suspect was appropriate since the 2 individuals were never actually convicted. Its extremely obvious that those individuals DID in fact commit the crime, however they were never convicted of it. -- xchsxbigxmike

Edits

I made a few edits to recent changes, but we still have an article which now appears to contradict itself in claiming that the criminals' weapons were obtained both legally and illegally....

"Phillips and Matasareanu had previously been arrested in 1996 for armed robbery, but legally fought and successfully won for their assault rifles to be returned to them."

"Opponents of gun control counter that since the weapons had been obtained illegally, the incident did not indicate that criminal use of registered fully automatic firearms was a problem; to date there has been no recorded commission of a crime other than suicide with a legally registered fully automatic firearm by the legal owner--a few have been used following their theft"

Please clarify, or cite sources.

The judges gave them their guns back so they could pay their crimes. - LAPD85

Somebody should add two bits of information:

The two suspects were stopped that morning by police; guns were found in the trunk; they were let go.
The mother of the guy who did not get medical attention in time sued the city; this resulted in a mistrial in 2000

AxelBoldt 03:25, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

---

I walked this area today. The map supplied places the second assailant's death southwest of Archwood and Hinds Ave. According to the CNN video it is actually half a block east of that location, at the center of this map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=North+Hollywood,+CA&t=k&ll=34.192041,-118.390721&spn=0.001706,0.003012&t=h

An odd thing happened when I stopped to ponder where the first assailant shot himself. I stood there feeling the weight of the event, the courage of the police. There is simply NO cover there for the cops to use, even Archwood was deathtrap for officers trying to persue; a walled in space offering nothing to hide behind. Then I heard a cooing, and on the fence next to me a pidgeon was staring at me. I cooed back, mockingly, and the bloody thing launched itself and landed on my head. I sat there dumbfounded as a car drove slowly by. I simply pointed at it in that everyday gesture of "hey, there is a pidgeon on my head".

Officers, thank you for your fine service. -corp

---

Bullets shot through cement

Can bullets really go through cement walls? Could somebody confirm this? Ravenstorm 00:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends on the weapons used, and how thick the wall is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ECJ2Lt0cU and the 2nd and 1st video demonstrate. An M2 machinegun sends bullets through a cement wall, and sideways through steel office furniture. An m16 can't get through the cement wall in a single bullet.

The wall fired through was a cinder block, not reinforced concrete. A normal rifle, and even high-velocity handguns can take cinder blocks no problem.

Contradiction in Civilians wounded

Early: The shootout resulted in the wounding of twenty people (twelve police officers and eight civilians)

Later: During the shootout, a total of twelve officers and two civilians were wounded

I mean, I guess some civilians could technically have been shot after the shootout, but that would be under very strange circumstances.

I'm guessing the lower number is true. One of the gunmen hit a hostage in the bank, and then trapped the hostages in the bank so they wouldn't get hurt. Later, Larry shot at a chopper with a reporter. There was no other mention of civilians being hurt, though it's possible they were caught in crossfire. However, the cops had the area surrounded before the gunmen got away from the bank.

Ah, I'll just change the article myself to reflect what the article says. A random CNN article I found only mentions one civilian... 70.66.9.162 10:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

B&B store sued & closed?

I'm just curious as to why the store that helped end the conflict was sued and closed down. Really, why would a business that helped bring down the suspects be punished in return??? Did they have any part in providing the suspects assault rifles?

Also, did the store have a choice to begin with? I thought that police and authority have the right to commandeer property in case of emergencies like the North Hollywood shootout.

Can someone clarify that in the article, or write a new one? I'm curious on the rationale behind this, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Il consiglieri (talk • contribs) 01:11, August 13, 2006

That may be right ethically, but that's not how the courts saw it. As far as I know, B&B Sales didn't have any part in providing the suspects with any of their weapons. I believe B&B's options to provide or not were slim to none, but they wouldn't really argue about it because it went by a "it's ok, you're police and the suspects are malicious" rule. In the heat of the moment, and due to that property commandeering bit you said, B&B let the police have their way. The anti-gun advocates sued B&B because they didn't do a full investigation into whether the men entering the shop in police SWAT (mainly), detective and whatever-they-were-wearing garb were legitimate police and whether at that time, there was actually an emergency going on. The anti-gun people wouldn't allow an assault rifle handout to slide because it was handed out on the honor system. Plus, some of them just hate assault rifles in general and like to sue first and play it as it goes. Slof 10:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Real reason for B&B's closure

OK, guys, here's the truth: B&B gave the police officers weapons without the waiting period, action was taken against B&B by the Department of Justice, and B&B is now closed, but according to this website [1] from the DOJ, it was unrelated to the North Hollywood Shootout. According to that page, it was due to overcharging of customers. You can read the page for youself. Now, it says these were customer complaints and so on, and while it's still possible that secretly it was also related to the Shootout, I think we can safely say that they had some cause to be investigated, at the least. If true, I'm glad to hear this, for one. CumbiaDude 06:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

B&B Sources?

I smell bullshit.

Yes, I agree, let's see a court case citation, or remove this from the article. It does sound a lot like a conservative urban legend.

Yah, the paragraph directly following it is pretty fishy too. I added citation needed tags, and we might want to add NPOV as well. —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 21:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

--- My old boss used to work at BnB... I heard that the store closed for unrelated reasons. Apparently one of the owners was crooked.

I worked at a different gun club a while back...If a cop comes in and says "shots fired, officer down, gimme the biggest rifle you have" an employee would reply "How many would you like, and would you like me to load it for you." There is no 10 day waiting period for an emergency like that, no more than there is a lemon law if an officer commandeers a vehicle. - xchsxbigxmike ---

Original Info posted by

I don't know their source, but this info was originally posted by 71.245.133.181 in July 2006. Based on edit history and links placed in the article at various times, it's highly likely that this person was, or was somehow related to the admin of this site memorializing the perpetrators of the crime.

71.103.121.188 21:31, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Anybody who believes that the gun store was closed because it supplied weapons to the police is a moron. Officers seizing property for the purpose of dealing with an emergency indemnifies the store.

Left or right arm?

The first mention says he was hit in the left arm, and the next paragraph says that he was reloading one handed as "his right arm was still not working, as shown in video tapes". Which is it, left or right? Pennywisepeter 11:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

HK91 hit?

"Phillips walked over to the car, opened the door, and reached inside--possibly he was going to get in--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, while another hit the HK-91's trigger group. Instead of disabling the weapon, however, the bullet destroyed the second sear inside the gun, accidentally causing it to become a fully automatic rifle."

Yet 'The Weapons' section claims the rifle was only hit in the bolt guide rails. The latter seems far more likely to me, so do we have a source as to where it was hit? Geoff B 02:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

drugs/medication used by suspects?

The movie 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out shows both gunmen taking pills shortly before the shot out. What/how much did the gunmen take?

I don't know how old this is, but they took one pill each of muscle relaxant. 66.53.209.212 22:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

--I added this, which I obtained from a few narrated videos, but they took phenobarbitol, a barbituate muscle relaxant. Who and why is in the article.

This reads like a "true crime" magazine

It needs major trimming. There's loads of unreferenced junk, omniscient description, and conjecture. The "Shootout" section needs a complete rewrite. I wouldn't even know where to begin to salvage it. I seem to recall that earlier versions of this article were much more readable and concise, and contained real verifiable information. What happened? Rhombus 06:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The garbage all seems to have come from a series of edits by an anonymous user on July 12, 2006. The additions included such gems as "When the cops outside saw him, they immediately thought he resembled a hollywood monster, bulging with body armor and clad in black, the sunglasses under his ski mask giving him an almost insectoid appearance." I would revert the entire article and then reincorporate what verifiable information is left in the current article.Boondock 07:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I recently watched an episode of Shootout! about this, and I have a feeling that someone has watched the same program and tried to add extra information from it to the Shootout section. I'd say that more than three-quarters of the quotes seem to have been taken directly from the interviews. RWyn 19:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

--I'm an anonymous editor, but only for the last few days. I try to keep my info cited, relavent, and encyclopedic. If there is a way to revert to a better form, please do so?

Retagging from unreferenced to non-compliant

Based on recent mostly-anon edits(past few months), this has gone from an unsourced article to a total mess afoul of NPOV and possibly loaded with original research distorting its accuracy. If this was a bit harsh, please feel free to revert/undo my retagging... Ranma9617 07:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

-- While I didnt have time to totally re-write this article, I did go through and delete some of the personal opinions that were cluttering this article. ~xchsxbigxmike --

POV paragraph

What's this paragraph doing at the end of the Shootout Section?

"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."

Speculation? By whom? What's this crap about a training film? What earlier shootout? Which fictional incident? I'm removing this until further notice. Soniczip 13:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

AK-47 / Norinco?

Are we sure the stovepipe malfunction was of a Norinco rifle and not an AK-47?

References

I have added specific citations using the National Geographic program. Someone should do the same with the corresponding episode of Shootout! so that this page looks less like a load of unverifiable original research. Cliff smith 21:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Shooter Three

I don't believe it mentions that officers searched until about 11:30 PM or so for a third shooter. Shouldn't that be added? --Defender 911 00:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

If a reference an be found for it, then yeah that would be good. That could be with that small 5th paragraph in "The shootout" section. Cliff smith 14:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:NhshootoutNshot.jpg

Image:NhshootoutNshot.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 00:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

They had AKM not AK-47 rifles like the media reported. AKM's shoot at a higher rate of fire than the AK-47 which was evident in the footage

Facts section

It has only one linked source, and it looks somewhat like trivia sections you see on some film articles. The only thing that is linked was in the episode of Critical Situation, so that could be incorporated somewhere and referenced, but the rest of it has no sources. Because of this, it looks like it warrants removal. Any thoughts? Cliff smith 16:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)