3 Held in Bank Robbery; Police Rescue Workers

An apparent attempt to rob a Long Beach bank was interrupted Wednesday by police, who kept the institution surrounded for nearly five hours before storming inside to free four employees who were hiding in a vault.

No one was injured in the incident, which began shortly after noon at the Bank of Long Beach on Ximeno Avenue near the city’s bustling traffic circle, police said.

But the commotion lasted well into the night as teams of Long Beach police, assisted by FBI agents, arrested first one teen-age boy and then two others found hiding on the bank’s second floor. All three suspects are believed to be juveniles, authorities said.

Karen Kerr, a spokeswoman for the Long Beach Police Department, said police got word of the incident from a group of bank employees, apparently on their way to lunch, who stopped a motorcycle officer to report that three suspicious-looking people had just walked into the bank.

The officer approached the bank with one of the employees, and reached the glass door just in time to see someone vault over the counter into the tellers’ area, Kerr said.

Kerr said the officer radioed for help, and within 60 seconds, seven squad cars had surrounded the bank. As officers headed toward the door, it suddenly opened and one of the suspects stepped into the street.

“Freeze!” officers shouted, but the suspect instead retreated back into the bank and disappeared, Kerr said.

The confrontation marked the beginning of the afternoon-long siege during which the bank was surrounded and cordoned off by FBI and police SWAT teams. Two major thoroughfares were blocked during the incident, and more than 50 people were evacuated from nearby businesses and apartments, Kerr said.

Initially, Kerr said, the officers believed there were seven people inside the bank--the three suspects and four bank employees who were at tellers’ booths. But 40 minutes into the standoff, she said, they were proven wrong when the door opened and an elderly man strolled out onto the sidewalk and into a human wall of rifle-toting SWAT officers.

Startled, the man told police that he had been secluded in the safe deposit box area of the bank, and had no idea that anything unusual was happening, Kerr said. He appeared to have been the only customer inside.

As the hours ticked by, Kerr said, police managed to contact the employees, four women who told authorities they had locked themselves in the vault at the beginning of the incident and had hidden there the rest of the day. Kerr would not say how the women had managed to speak to authorities, but other officials noted that the vault is equipped with a telephone.

Finally, at 4:45 p.m., after attempts to contact the suspects by bullhorn had failed, the Long Beach police SWAT team stormed the bank’s first floor, exploding three flash-bang grenades. Officers emerged with the four women, who were later described by FBI Special Agent John Hoos as “safe and scared.”

Police and FBI agents said they arrested the three suspects between 9 p.m. and 9:40 p.m. on the bank’s second floor. The three were unarmed when they were captured, although the bank employees said that at least one of the alleged robbers had previously been armed with a pistol, authorities said.

Kerr said the incident was the second robbery attempt in the last four months at the bank. In November, she said, three men staged a takeover-style robbery at the institution. She would not say how much, if any, money was taken.

FBI officials, however, said they do not believe there is any connection between the two robberies.