Robbery Suspect at Bank Gives Up, Free 3 Hostages

A Yorba Linda man claiming to have AIDS and with “nothing to lose” was arrested Wednesday afternoon after a tense standoff at a Dana Point bank where he took three people hostage at knifepoint during a foiled robbery.

David Clyde Sweeton, 34, a salesman who recently moved to Yorba Linda from San Juan Capistrano, surrendered to FBI agents and Orange County sheriff’s deputies after the 30-minute incident at First Interstate Bank, 6 Monarch Bay Plaza, law enforcement officials said.

His hostages, two female employees and a female customer whom police would not identify, were released shaken but unharmed, according to Wylie B. (Bucky) Cox, a supervising FBI agent in Santa Ana, and Lt. Robert Rivas of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Treated for Shock

No other injuries were reported, although paramedics treated the hostages for shock. One was pregnant, Rivas said.

Sweeton was lodged in Orange County Jail on suspicion of bank robbery. He may be charged under either federal or state bank robbery statutes. FBI agents said Sweeton is also a suspect in an April 27 robbery of a First Interstate Bank branch in Orange.

The suspect entered the Monarch Bay bank branch at 4:05 p.m., approached a bank officer and demanded $10,000, saying he had a pistol in a briefcase, Cox and Rivas said. The suspect then told nine bank employees and three customers that he had AIDS “and would cut himself (and possibly infect others) if he didn’t get the $10,000,” Rivas said. The money was quickly turned over.

While inside the bank, Cox and Rivas said, the suspect spotted sheriff’s deputies outside responding to an automatic alarm. About 20 officers were dispatched from a sheriff’s substation to the scene within minutes and were joined by 13 FBI agents.

Startled at the swift and heavy police response, the suspect grabbed a customer, placing a 12-inch, bayonet-style knife to her back and ordered two other women nearby not to move.

At 4:12 p.m., a FBI agent in Los Angeles telephoned the bank and spoke to the suspect “in an effort to keep him calm,” Cox said.

During the conversation, Rivas said, a sheriff’s deputy and his police dog appeared at the front door and tried to coax the suspect into surrendering.

The suspect then released his hostages, dropped his knife and gave up, Rivas said.

“He basically told our people that he did not have a gun and wanted to talk to somebody and ‘Don’t hurt me,’ ” Rivas quoted him as saying.

The suspect was handcuffed and led outside. Witnesses reported that he was well-dressed--in slacks and dress shirt--and lowered his head as he was escorted away.

“He looked pretty bummed out,” said Gary Bellarts, an attendant at nearby Monarch Bay Union service station.

Cox said police did not find a gun concealed in the briefcase, as the suspect had threatened, and they recovered the money he had kept clutched in his hand.

Workers in other stores of the Monarch Bay center reported that the bank employees and customers appeared distraught after the robbery.

“A couple of the ladies were escorted across the sidewalk (by police) and they were all crying and upset,” said a clerk at Monarch Bay Video, who did not want to give her name.

Peter Arroyo, a cook at nearby Paisan’s Hot Deli Gourmet Specialty, said that four of the bank employees were questioned by police in his establishment and that one woman was pregnant. He said all appeared “very upset.” A clerk at Monarch Bay Pharmacy and Gifts, which is next door to the bank, said she saw police running outside with guns drawn.

“We didn’t really know what was going on,” the clerk said. “They were telling people to get inside and take cover.”

Bellarts, who was watching the scene from his nearby service station, said that uniformed and plain-clothes police officers surrounded the bank with guns drawn. Two sheriff’s deputies, he said, guarded the back exit with shotguns. Police also blocked the entrance to the shopping center.

Investigation of the robbery is being conducted by Orange County’s newly formed Bank Robbery Apprehension Team (BRAT), a special unit of FBI agents and a sheriff’s deputy who began working together on a full-time basis April 17. Cox said the unit was formed to coordinate bank robbery investigations and facilitate speedy arrests of bank robbers.

Bank robberies in the county, while still numerous, are down from previous years.