Bank Executive Wounded; Pair Sought in 2 Holdups : Crime: A loan officer who balked at giving up his watch became the first bank employee to be injured by robbers in Los Angeles in five years.

The same robbers held up banks in North Hollywood and Encino on Friday and shot an executive at the Encino bank when he balked at giving them his watch, Los Angeles police reported.

A 57-year-old loan officer from Granada Hills, who was wounded in the stomach, became the first bank employee in about five years to be injured by robbers in Los Angeles, which has more bank robberies than any other city in the country, Detective Norm Roberge said.

The wounded man, whose name was not made public, was treated at UCLA Medical Center. He was initially listed in serious condition but was upgraded to good condition early Friday evening, police said.

He was wounded about noon when two men armed with 9 millimeter semiautomatic handguns and dressed in baggy pants and jackets robbed the Union Federal Bank branch at 15962 Ventura Blvd., Roberge said. One man vaulted the counter and demanded money from a teller, he said. The robber received less than $5,000.

The other man entered the loan officer’s glass-enclosed office and ordered him to surrender his wristwatch.

When the loan officer said his watch was “cheap and worthless,” he was shot once in the stomach, Roberge said. The robber then left the office without taking the watch.

Meanwhile, his accomplice fired one shot--which hit a wall without striking anyone--in the direction of a group of employees who heard the commotion and emerged from a lunchroom, Roberge said. Ordering them to lie down, the robbers fled and were last seen running south on Gaviota Avenue into a residential area, Roberge said.

The robber who shot the employee wore a leather jacket and his accomplice was clad in a black Chicago Bulls jacket with a hood. A robber wearing a similar Chicago Bulls jacket and fitting the same description was one of three young men who attempted to rob a Bank of America branch in North Hollywood at 5278 Lankershim Blvd. just before 10 a.m., Roberge said.

In the North Hollywood case, three men walked into the bank and one demanded access to the vault, Roberge said. When employees said the vault could not be opened immediately, one man fired a shot into the wall. The trio then fled in two cars, he said.

“We think it’s the same guys,” Roberge said. “They just tried it again later.”