Bank Robbery Ends With 1 Suspect Hurt, 2 Arrested : Ventura: Suspects fled to a Fillmore mobile home park before one is hit by a tractor-trailer rig and the other two are arrested.

A Ventura bank was robbed late Tuesday morning by three bandits who briefly escaped to Fillmore before one of them was struck by a tractor-trailer rig and critically injured and the other two were arrested, authorities said.

Shortly after 11 a.m. two of the three suspects burst into the Bank of America branch at 2698 E. Main Street brandishing at least one sawed-off shotgun.

One of the suspects then leaped over the bank’s counter and ordered patrons and employees on the floor while systematically grabbing cash from each of the bank’s teller stations. The two men then escaped to an awaiting car, said Ventura Police Sgt. Bob Anderson.

A third suspect, believed to be a woman and getaway driver, was also involved in the incident, police said.

“They didn’t injure anyone, but they sure scared the heck out of a lot of people at that bank,” Anderson said.

A few minutes later, a vehicle matching the description of the car leaving the bank was spotted by a California Highway Patrol officer traveling east on California 126 toward Fillmore. The CHP officer followed, but did not chase the suspects until they turned off into the El Dorado Mobile Home Park, said FBI Special Agent Larry Dick.

“The CHP did some excellent police work here,” Dick said. “They were able to follow and observe the suspects’ actions so that other units could converge on the mobile home park.”

The suspects were arrested a short time later by Ventura police, CHP and Ventura County sheriff’s deputies but not before one of them was hit by a tractor-trailer rig and critically injured while attempting to run across California 126. He was transported to Santa Paula Memorial Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He remained in critical condition Tuesday evening, a nursing supervisor said.

Although law enforcement officials would not disclose the amount of cash stolen during the robbery, agents and investigators said as of late Tuesday that not all of the money had been recovered and that a possible fourth suspect may have been involved. Authorities seized a late model Oldsmobile near Piru that may have been the fourth suspect’s vehicle.

“In takeover robberies, it is not uncommon to have the main perpetrators hire a younger person to go into the back, wield a gun and abuse the tellers,” Dick said. “They are then paid a certain amount for the task and told to get lost. We’re not sure, but we think this is what may have happened in this case.”

Dick said all three of the suspects will be charged with armed robbery and that the two uninjured suspects are being held in Ventura County Jail. Because of conflicting information about the suspects’ names and ages, a computerized statewide search of fingerprint records will be needed in order to confirm their true identities, he said.

Several hours after the robbery, the suspects’ abandoned 1994 Cadillac sedan remained parked on a quiet lane at the mobile home park, a shotgun butt still visible as it stuck out from underneath a floor mat.

Many residents at the trailer park contacted later Tuesday said they were unaware that the fleeing bank robbers had dumped their getaway car there in an attempt to evade officers.

“Even though I’m a former combat veteran, I don’t think that I would have wanted to run into these people,” said Don Ostrander, 70. “Boy, we have last week’s quake and now this. What’s next?”

Another resident at the trailer park told his neighbor that one of the suspects casually approached him and asked for the way to the park’s exit. The man gave the directions, never thinking that the three were suspected bank robbers.