Police Killer May Be Tied to Robbery : Crime: Investigators are trying to determine if David Fukuto, the gunman in the fatal shooting of two officers, also held up five people last year.

A photograph taken by an automated teller machine camera provides more evidence of what investigators believe is a possible link between the gunman who killed two police officers at a Holiday Inn in Torrance last month and an armed robbery last year at a real estate office in Gardena.

Gardena Police Lt. David Morgan said Monday that Torrance detectives have notified his department they are attempting to determine whether David Fukuto--slain after the hotel attack that claimed the lives of two Rancho Palos Verdes officers--is the same man who burst into a real estate office in June and robbed five people at gunpoint.

In both cases, witnesses say, the gunman announced a holdup, wore military clothing, hid his face behind dark netting, brandished an automatic rifle and carried a bag filled with flexible plastic handcuffs.

“When you look at both cases, there are similarities,” Morgan said. Police declined to elaborate Monday.

Akira Tabata, 45, an electronics engineer from Gardena, said Monday that Redondo Beach Police Detective Phil Keenan told him that Tabata’s driver’s license--stolen during the robbery at the C & C Real Estate office in Gardena--was found in Fukuto’s home shortly after his death during a struggle with police after the killings in the hotel.

“The policeman said it was very important,” Tabata added.

Tabata said his ATM card also was taken in the real estate office holdup June 11, 1993. He said he later was told by Union Bank officials that the stolen card had been used at an ATM machine at the bank’s branch in Gardena a few minutes after the robbery at the real estate office.

“The bank said they had a picture of the man who had taken my card, and they said he looked Oriental,” Tabata said. “They sent me a fax of the picture to see if I knew the man, but I didn’t know him.”

Tabata said that was the last he heard of the robbery until he received the call from Keenan about 10 days ago, and Keenan told him his stolen driver’s license had been recovered.

“He asked me if I knew David Fukuto,” Tabata said. “I told him no.”

Tabata said he, three other men and a woman were studying Chinese astrology in a class at the real estate office in June when a man appeared at the open door brandishing a machine gun.

“He was wearing Army clothes and he had a dark net masking his face,” Tabata said. “When we realized it wasn’t a joke, we put our hands up.

“He told us to put our belongings on the table--our wallets and a handbag--and then he moved us to the back of the room. He had these plastic handcuffs with him, and he made us put them on each other.

“He asked me for my PIN number (the personal identification number needed to activate an ATM card), “ Tabata said. “He told me: ‘I have your driver’s license, and if you lie, I can find you.’

“I gave him the right number,” Tabata said.

The robber later took $600, using the ATM card for transactions at the Union Bank branch and another bank, Tabata said.

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He said that because of the mask, he is unable to describe the features of the man who robbed him.

“He was small, 5-2 or 5-3,” Tabata said. “He spoke English clearly, with an American accent.”

Witnesses of the shooting that claimed the lives of Sgt. Vernon Thomas Vanderpool, 57, and Capt. Michael Tracy, 50, described Fukuto as about the same height. They said Fukuto, who was born in this country, spoke clearly.