Countywide : Robber Shot in Stanton Was ‘Scooter Bandit’

The robber who was shot and killed Monday after he held up a Stanton savings and loan was the notorious “Scooter Bandit” who had used a scooter and a bicycle to pull off at least seven bank robberies in Orange County within the last four months, FBI officials said Tuesday.

Samuel Borunda, 43, of Orange had raked in about $10,000 in a spate of bank robberies that began June 14 and ended Monday when he was killed while making his getaway, authorities said. Borunda, who had just robbed the Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. in Stanton of an undisclosed sum, was shot at least twice after investigators said he pointed a handgun at an armored car guard who had unknowingly walked into the middle of the holdup. Investigators later identified the bandit’s weapon as an air pistol.

Sheriff’s deputies also found Borunda’s getaway bicycle parked near the rear entrance of the building.

FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said agents had linked Borunda to six other robberies by checking witnesses’ descriptions, the robber’s method and surveillance photographs. “It was a plurality of evidence that made us believe it was the Scooter Bandit,” Reagan said.

Borunda had twice robbed the Santa Ana branches of Fullerton Savings and Santa Barbara Savings, Reagan said.