Pair Honored for Role in Capturing Robbers

The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday honored for their bravery two employees of a Sepulveda bank who helped apprehend two robbers, chasing them on foot and by car.

Joel Goldberg, 22, and Rik Wise, 23, were awarded the commission’s Certificate of Appreciation for pursuing two men who robbed an Atlantic Financial Savings Bank teller on Feb. 9, Officer Paul Hord said.

The armed robbers ordered bank tellers to put up their hands, but, Hord said, “with total disregard for his own safety,” Wise pressed an emergency alarm button to alert police.

After the suspects fled with the money, Wise pursued them on foot and watched as they got into a getaway car driven by a third person. Meanwhile, Goldberg brought his car to the front of the bank and picked up Wise, and the two men pursued the robbers as they drove off.

Wise and Goldberg continued the chase even after police joined in. Eventually, the robbers left their car and tried to flee on foot, but the two men chased them and helped wrestle them to the ground, Hord said.

Hord said the robbers, whose names were not released, were responsible for a 14-month string of bank robberies in the San Fernando Valley.

Wise’s supervisors criticized him for pursuing the suspects, but police are trying to recruit him for a job in the Police Department, Hord said. Wise was not present at the ceremony.