2nd Bandit Robs Bank Minutes After the First
In what investigators called a first in Orange County, different robbers hit the the same bank within minutes Thursday.
Bank employees had just called the Sheriff’s Department to report the first robbery when the second robber walked in, authorities said.
“As long as I’ve been in the bureau, I’ve never heard of anything like it,” said Gary Morley, a 17-year veteran of the FBI.
The first robber approached a teller at the Bank of America, 10450 Beach Blvd., shortly before 11 a.m. and handed over a note demanding money. He then fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash, Morley said.
Five minutes later, another man approached a different teller, said, “Give me the money,” and also fled the bank on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash, Morley said.
The second man got away. But based on a description broadcast over police radios, investigators arrested a suspect in the first robbery, Dwight James Fowler, 21, of Gardena at a Cerritos Avenue apartment complex about four blocks from the bank. He was booked into Orange County Jail, and bail was set at $50,000, Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said.
Morley said investigators do not think the robbers knew each other.
“We think it’s strictly unrelated robberies. I think it was just a fluke.”
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