Bandits Hit Bingo Game : Robbery: Masked gunmen wound reserve officer, 2 others as they burst in on 350 players at Boyle Heights school. An ‘inside job’ is suspected.

Four bandits, one armed with a semiautomatic rifle, burst into a crowded bingo game in a Boyle Heights high school gymnasium Wednesday evening, shot and wounded three people--including an off-duty reserve police officer--and escaped with an undetermined amount of cash, police said.

The game at Salesian High School in the 900 block of South Soto Street had been underway for about an hour when four men wearing stocking masks ordered the more than 350 people in the gym to lie on the floor shortly after 8 p.m., Los Angeles Police Lt. Jim Murray said.

When the reserve officer made “a slight move,” one of the bandits began firing, hitting the officer in the foot, witnesses said.

The bandit continued firing, critically wounding another man in the torso and striking a woman in the leg, Murray said. None of the wounded, all of whom were taken to County-USC Medical Center, was identified.

Officials running the bingo game said the robbery appeared to be an “inside job.”

“We were on the sixth game of the evening,” said the bingo announcer who would only identify himself as John. “I look around and I see three gentlemen walk in and say: ‘Nobody move. This is a holdup.”’

The announcer said one man carried a semiautomatic rifle, while the others carried handguns. He added that one bandit wore a baseball cap and the other wore a beany.

“They grabbed the manager of the game by the neck and put a gun to his head,” the announcer said. “They picked up two metal boxes and one bag full of money and fled.

“To me it’s an inside job because they knew where everything was.”

The reserve officer was volunteering as a security guard at the game, Murray said.

“They have to have a security officer at a bingo game,” Murray said. “His efforts resulted in him being shot, luckily not critically. The bandits appeared to have known who he was. They shot him immediately.”

The lieutenant said the other two people were apparently shot to show that the bandits meant business.

The robbery took about 10 minutes, Murray said, adding that the bandits escaped in a white station wagon with less than $1,000.