Landlord Should Help Make ATM Safe : Wall Outside Bank Building Needs to Be Removed to Lessen the Chance of Robbery

The automated teller machine at a particular Great Western Bank branch in Sherman Oaks is not the most secluded in the San Fernando Valley. It sits mostly in full view of a busy intersection at Riverside Drive and Woodman Avenue.

A criminal, however, brings a different perspective. The wide surface streets provide easy escape routes in all directions, particularly to the nearby San Diego and Ventura freeways. Bus stops provide a convenient excuse for loitering.

Perhaps that is why the bank branch was robbed four times last year. More recently, Sherri Foreman, 29 years old and 13 weeks pregnant, was fatally stabbed there during an ATM robbery last March.

Those incidents provide ample reasons for additional security measures. Toward that end, Great Western officials asked the building manager, United Overseas Investment Inc., to provide better lighting and to trim shrubbery near the teller machine down to a height of two feet.

The manager has complied with both requests, but a further step is also warranted.

That would involve the removal of a structure that holds a Great Western Bank branch sign. It shields from view the route that ATM users take to get from their cars to the teller machine, although it is not known whether Foreman’s assailant used it to mask his approach.

Unfortunately, the building manager first said that removing the structure would be an overreaction. He later said that it was “nicely designed” and “has been with this building for 28 years.”

Those are lame reasons for not taking a low-cost public safety step that could be accomplished by any local high school football team and a few sledgehammers.

Its “nice design” resembles six upended washbasins shoved into the ground, and it would not be missed. Even the bank wants the structure removed. The landlord should happily comply, either at the bank’s cost or his own.