Great Hue and Cry: Tellers Flee Tear Gas Meant for Robbers

They were crying all the way from the bank Monday--two banks, that is, where tear-gas canisters designed to foil bank robbers mysteriously exploded and sent employees running outside and gasping for air.

Officials are still trying to figure out what went wrong Monday morning with the tear gas canisters at the Canoga Park branch of Independence Bank and the Toluca Lake branch of Coast Savings and Loan.

The two San Fernando Valley incidents, which occurred less than an hour apart, amazed police and fire officials, who said it is rare for two such events to occur in a year, let alone in a single day.

“We haven’t been out on that kind of incident for the three years that I’ve been here,” said Los Angeles Fire Capt. Raymond Peterman.

“Bizarre,” said a veteran bank-robbery detective.

Police, fire and bank officials were reluctant to talk much about the tear-gas fiasco, fearing that details might prove useful to potential bank robbers.

But they did say the tiny tear gas canisters are usually paired with packets of powdered red dye and slipped into stacks of fake money. The packet is then sandwiched between real bills so that it looks like an ordinary stack of dollars.

How It Works

During robberies, bank tellers try to slip the fake-money packets into stacks of real money. If things go right, a detective said, the packets explode as the robber makes his getaway, dying the bandit a telltale red and hampering him with teary eyes and a choking fit.

It didn’t work like that Monday. An employee somehow accidentally set off a tear-gas cartridge at Coast Savings and Loan on W. Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake about 9 a.m., Peterman said.

Five customers in the bank were unhurt. Eight employees, suffering from eye irritation and breathing difficulties, were treated at the scene with oxygen, Peterman said. The Fire Department used a portable forced-air blower to flush the tear gas from the building.

Then, shortly before 10 a.m., fire officials received another call of a tear-gas detonation at Independence Bank on Sherman Way in Canoga Park.

Tellers were doing their morning cash count when the explosion occurred as a teller lifted one of the special packets from his cash drawer, said Dan Geary, senior vice president of Independence Bank. This time, there were no customers, but employees got a taste of what was meant for a bank robber.

“The idea is for these things to explode when the robber gets out the door or inside his car, and he gets this mess to contend with,” Geary said. Instead, he added, “We inadvertently ended up with a mess to contend with.”