The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : Detectives You Can Bank On for Tough Job

There are 275 square miles in the San Fernando Valley and about 300 banks spread out among them--158 on Ventura Boulevard alone. Those seemingly arcane facts are paramount in the lives of Los Angeles Police Detectives Joe Chandler, Tom Gattegno and Joe Getherall, even though to some people, they might seem immaterial--or “invenereal” as Getherall, a cynical 25-year veteran, likes to say in copspeak.

That’s because Chandler, Gattegno and Getherall, their team leader, investigate Valley bank robberies in a city known as the Bank Robbery Capital of the World. With 860 such crimes in Los Angeles last year--378, or 44% of them, in the Valley--it’s a lot of work for three middle-aged cops who have managed to stay married to their first wives and still solve 66% of their cases.

They used to solve 92%, according to Getherall, but that was when the Valley bank robbery team had eight detectives. Five have retired since the riots without being replaced. The caseload has become so great, says Getherall, that “it’s difficult sometimes to remember who the people are.”

To jog their memories, the detectives explained over a recent lunch at Sizzler, they lug around albums filled with incident reports and photographs--close-up shots of the thieves in action taken by bank surveillance cameras.

Sometimes the robbers are disguised; often, surprisingly, they don’t bother. Sometimes they are pointing a pistol or rifle right at a teller in the foreground while in the background, the bank’s hapless patrons lie prone on the floor, their legs splayed in haste and fear.

Nicknames also help. There’s The Foul Mouth, a rare female thief who demands her cash in a stream of obscenities, and The Latin Suit, a graying and mustachioed, apparently Latino thief who dresses like an executive or wealthy tourist.

Such trademarks are key because most bank robbers--a desperate lot usually addicted to high-priced drugs--strike again and again. Patterns form. And from those patterns, experienced detectives can often predict when and where the next bank robbery will be.

“Some guys like certain banks, some like days of the week, times of the day and the same clothing--they’re superstitious,” Chandler said.

That’s how Getherall & Co. catch up with many of their suspects. Usually, the surveillance photos nail them pretty good and so do IDs made through “six-packs”--the sets of six photographs detectives show witnesses.

But not always. A recent disappointment involved a terrifying “takeover” robbery the U. S. attorney’s office decided not to prosecute, despite extremely clear bank-surveillance photos and three positive IDs from witnesses.

Bank robberies are usually prosecuted under federal law, but Getherall believes that the Justice Department has recently become interested only in high-profile cases.

“I can’t for the life of me figure out how some (federal) officials don’t find three positive IDs and bank surveillance photos good enough,” Getherall said, shaking his head over a steak smothered in onions.

As with many police, an appreciation for the bizarre keeps them going in the face of frustration. Though a highly publicized kidnaping of a bank executive remains unsolved, Getherall and his partners literally guffawed over the memory of how disconcertingly calm the victim was--despite the fact that a “bomb” was strapped to his arm.

“He was a little too cool,” recalled Getherall, who interviewed the man at his West Hills bank branch for a good quarter of an hour before he disclosed the location of the bomb, soon confirmed as a fake.

“I get to the part about the bomb and I said, ‘Well. Where is it?’ And he said, ‘Right here!’ ”

War stories like that and frequent robberies--more than one a day on average--punctuate an otherwise tedious routine. Mornings are spent comparing notes and brainstorming at Parker Center, afternoons watching hot spots in the Valley. If one man is sick or takes a day off, the burden on the remaining two grows even bigger.

So it was after lunch, when Gattegno left for a weekend trip to celebrate his 19th anniversary, leaving his partners on their own. Getherall and Chandler headed for the afternoon’s stakeout, undaunted by their specialty’s statistics and a caseload they treat as invenereal.