Westminster Bank Robbed Before Opening by 3 Men : Crime: Police and FBI searching for gunmen, who wore business suits. Two employees are slightly injured. Officials will not specify amount stolen.

Police and FBI agents are searching for three well-dressed men who robbed a Westminster bank before it opened Wednesday, injuring two employees.

Gary Morley, special agent for the FBI’s Santa Ana office, said that three men wearing business suits forced their way into the Sanwa Bank at 7751 Westminster Blvd. when employees opened the bank at 8:15 a.m.

The robbers then forced bank employees to open the bank’s vault. One robber struck an employee in the head with a gun, and a robber stepped on another employee’s hand, said Keith Karpe, vice president of media relations for Sanwa Bank California.

They then escaped in a late-model medium blue Pontiac, Morley said. The car was last seen traveling west on Westminster Boulevard. The driver was a white woman with shoulder-length, light brown hair.

Rudy Aviles, an employee of the Napa Auto Parts store next to the bank, said he saw the woman sitting in the car by herself as he drove up to the store about 8:30 a.m.

“She was reading the paper like she was covering herself,” Aviles said.

The employee hit in the head received 16 stitches at Huntington Beach Medical Center. The other injured employee also was treated there and released.

While Karpe said they were physically fine, “emotionally, they’re probably quite bruised.”

Karpe said that standard Sanwa procedures call for one employee to act as a lookout while another checks the interior of the building before they open a bank.

“It’s hard to guard against something like” Wednesday’s attack, “but we do take all the standard precautions,” Karpe said. “It just surprised our people.” Bank officials would not say how much was taken.