Holdup Suspect Seized; Three in Standoff Slain

A gunman who held five hostages captive for nearly 13 1/2 hours was captured when he stepped out of an exclusive Beverly Hills jewelry store, but at least three people were killed in the standoff and resulting gunfire.

The standoff started at 10 a.m. Monday, when the man’s apparent robbery attempt was foiled. Instead, the gun-wielding man took five employees of Van Cleef & Arpels Inc. on the posh shopping street of North Rodeo Drive hostage. However, other employees elsewhere in the store triggered silent alarms before they escaped.

Police said that the suspect was injured and was taken to a hospital jail ward.

Two other people, a man and a woman, were taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment. Their conditions were not immediately known.

After a day of negotiations, the barricade came to a sudden end at 11:25 p.m., when shots were heard, apparently either concussion grenades or tear gas shells. These were followed by gunfire. Police would not say whether the suspect was injured but did say he was taken into custody.

Lt. Bill Hunt of the Beverly Hills Police Department said, “Somebody came out; we weren’t moving in on him.”

Negotiations between police and the gunman--who also telephoned several news agencies--had continued late into the night, with authorities saying they were hopeful that “time will eventually take its toll.”

At least 50 police officers and sheriff’s deputies, many armed with automatic weapons, converged on the store after an initial lone policeman with a shotgun arrived at the scene almost immediately after the alarms were sounded.

Officers said the gunman apparently was caught by surprise when police appeared.

The gunman, identifying himself only as “John,” claimed by telephone to have stabbed to death one of his captives, the store’s security guard. Two hostages inside the store confirmed by telephone that the security man had been slain.

Received Call

And KTLA, Channel 5, reported that it received a phone call at midafternoon from a man identifying himself as the gunman. The caller said he had killed a man named “Smith.”

“Mr. Smith’s body is right here, lying a few feet away . . . for several hours, “ the caller said in a tape aired by KTLA.

Police for the rest of the day, however, would not verify that there had been any injuries or a murder.

“Our feeling is we haven’t had any injuries, but there is a lot of conflicting information,” Hunt said earlier in the day.

Injury Report Disputed

However, the gunman’s apparent emergence from the store shortly before midnight set off a flurry of conflicting reports about the resulting gunfire. Ambulances that had been waiting all day pulled up and took the injured to the hospital.

Hunt said earlier that tactical options available to officers were reduced because the store is in a tightly secured building.

“This is not only a jewelry store, it’s a very secure jewelry store,” he said. “So that can cause a lot of problems tactically.

“It is very well constructed, and it’s heavily protected to keep people out. The store has a security gate at the front door,” the lieutenant said.

“He’s been under a lot of pressure in there for a lot of hours now,” Hunt said late Monday.

“We’re not going to try to force the issue, Hunt said of the standoff, indicating that it could have been “an all night affair.”

Police negotiated with the would-be robber by telephone at about 15-minute intervals throughout the day and night, reporting that he had made a “variety of demands.” They did not elaborate. Officers said they also spoke to several of the hostages.

One hostage, a 61-year old man, suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, but his condition had presented no medical emergency, Hunt said.

Reports from the scene indicated he may have been one of the victims taken to the hospital. Two people were taken out of the back of the store uninjured by sheriff’s Special Weapons Team officers, after the late-night explosion of shots.

The son of that hostage with diabetes had been at the scene most of the day.

“It’s a circus. My daddy’s up there damn near dead, and everybody here’s having a ball,” he said of the crowd gathered to witness the drama. The young man declined to give his name.

Food, Drinks Delivered

Shortly after 3:30 p.m., police, using hand-held, bulletproof shields, left bags containing bread, bologna and cold drinks outside the store’s front door at the request of the gunman.

But by late evening, the food had apparently not been picked up.

In his call to the KTLA newsroom, the robbery suspect requested that a television crew be sent to interview him and a TV monitor provided so that he could review what was taking place outside the store. He told the television station he attempted to rob the store because he thought the jeweler had sold him fake jewelry “a long time ago.”

Police, however, denied his request for television coverage.

In addition to Beverly Hills police, special weapons teams from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles Police Department were on the scene.

“My intention was to take the jewelry and leave with nobody hurt,” the man told United Press International by telephone. “It didn’t work out that way.”

He said he took the hostages--three men and two women--when he saw police pull up. He claimed to have subsequently stabbed the security guard because “the man was talking back to me. . . . I asked him to keep his mouth shut. He failed to obey my orders.”

Two hostages, the store’s general manager, Hugh Skinner, and saleswoman Ann Halperin reportedly verified the gunman’s account to news agencies in telephone calls.

Heard Screaming

Julie Stipkovich, a bookkeeper for the store, was working in a basement office when she heard the gunman enter.

“I heard him screaming at everyone to get on the floor,” she recalled.

Stipkovich said customers normally must ring a buzzer to enter the locked front door of the store.

“We just heard a lot of yelling and we got out of there as quickly as possible,” said jeweler Jose Castillo, who was working upstairs when the gunman entered. “A saleslady ran up and said there was a robbing going on.”

In addition to Halperin and Skinner, Castillo said those inside the store included the armed security guard, a porter and another saleswoman.

“Everyone is accounted for except them,” he said.

Police said 12 to 15 employees escaped as the gunman entered.

Streets Barricaded

Streets around the exclusive Rodeo Drive shop, including nearby Wilshire Boulevard, were closed to traffic throughout the day, resulting in a massive traffic jam that grew worse as the evening rush hour began. Customers and employees were evacuated from neighboring stores and barricades were set up to keep onlookers away.

But at 4:30 p.m., a bearded man clad in blue running shorts ran past the barriers and headed toward the store. Police chased him and took him into custody with his hands bound behind his back.

“He’s not the suspect,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Tellez said of the unidentified man. “He just decided on his own to go down there.”

The man was detained for questioning.

The jewelry store has one of the most prestigious addresses in the Los Angeles area. But on Monday, the area around it looked more like a war zone. Helicopters buzzed overhead, including a blue-and-white sheriff’s chopper that repeatedly swooped low over the scene.

Police All Over

“Police are all over the place,” said Hildegard Coghlan, manager of Giorgio Inc., a boutique across the street from Van Cleef & Arpels. “They are under cars, down the side streets, behind cars, behind posts and standing in doorways.”

Some officers were even seen peering out of manholes.

Coghlan said the 10 or 12 customers inside Giorgio’s when the hostage situation began were herded out a rear entrance. Employees were taken to the windowless second floor, out of sight of the huge plate glass windows that face Van Cleef & Arpels.

“If a person from inside shoots, it would go into our building,” she said.

Edwar, of the exclusive Jewels by Edwar store, was working in his front display window when he saw “police come speeding up to the corner of Van Cleef.”

Staff writers Mathis Chazanov, Tracey Kaplan, Nieson Himmel and Edward J. Boyer contributed to this article.