Local News in Brief : Suspect in String of ATM Holdups Seized

Detectives helped by a little luck arrested an ex-convict suspected of holding up 30 customers at automated bank teller machines from Culver City to Burbank, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

The break in the case came when Detective Don Riggio, 47, was strolling past the desk of two investigators at the Hollywood station and saw photographs of the suspect taken by a bank surveillance camera, Lt. Ed Hocking said.

Riggio “stated, ‘I know who that is,’ ” recognizing the man from a robbery case two years earlier, Hocking said.

Based on Riggio’s information and a fingerprint match with a stolen vehicle recovered after one of the robberies, police identified the man as Curtis Taylor, 28, he said.

Learning that Taylor frequented motels on the eastside of Hollywood, detectives “began a motel-by-motel search using plain old legwork,” finally locating him at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Harvard House motel in the 5200 block of Hollywood Boulevard, Hocking said.

Taylor was arrested without incident and was held without bail on a parole violation.