Southland Bank Robberies Drop 37% This Year

Bank robberies have dropped by more than a third throughout Southern California so far this year, a trend federal and banking officials attribute in part to more aggressive prosecutions, including those targeting young gang members who found themselves flush with looted weapons after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Police and bankers also credit boosted security measures and improved working relations among themselves and local law-enforcement agencies for the continuing decline in such robberies in metropolitan Los Angeles, which is still considered the nation’s bank-robbery capital.

“It’s probably the greatest cooperation between law enforcement and financial institutions since the cowboy days,” said Bill Wipprecht, director of security for Wells Fargo Banks.

The 461 robberies committed throughout the Southland in the first six months of this year represent a 37% decline from the same period last year, according to FBI statistics. (In the San Fernando Valley, a magnet for bank robbers because of easy access to freeways, there were 49 bank robberies in the first half of the year, contrasted with 80 during the first six months of last year.)

Violent takeover robberies--in which armed thieves hold a bank’s customers and employees hostage rather than quietly confronting a lone teller--have also dropped by 24%.

It is the third consecutive year that bank robberies have dipped throughout the FBI’s Southern California region, which encompasses Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino counties.

FBI officials attribute the trend to a new willingness between law enforcement and banking officials to work together to stave off robberies and capture thieves. Historically, competition-minded banking officials have been loath to share information on robberies committed at their branches.

But all that changed after the region’s bank robbery rate reached a decade high in 1992, when 2,641 banks were robbed. Police and banking officials also note that perhaps not coincidentally, that was also the year of the historic Los Angeles riots.

“We started seeing in late 1991 that gang members and their associates were graduating from hitting their local 7-Eleven to robbing banks because it was more profitable,” FBI spokesman John Hoos said. “Plus, a lot of weapons stolen during the riots ended up in the hands of gang members, who started going into the banks with heavy firepower and causing a lot of violence inside.”

Wipprecht of Wells Fargo agreed.

“We saw more armed-gang takeovers in the post-riot era,” he said. “We had cases where part of the initiation into the gang was to rob a bank . . . that type of behavior permeated some of the gangs in Los Angeles in the early 90s.”

Gang members have always been able to get ahold of guns, according to a Los Angeles police detective, who said the looting of pawnshops and gun shops during the riots merely made weapons more accessible.

“It was the fashionable crime at the time,” said Lt. Jim Grayson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery Homicide Division.

Possibly emboldened by the mother lode of guns at their disposal, more gang members--and younger thieves than ever--began holding up banks.

A particularly frightening development, say banking officials, was the greater use of “baby bandits,”--teen-agers recruited by older gang members to do their stealing for them, often in exchange for a 9-millimeter handgun and $100.

Fueled by criminals’ needs for quick cash to pay for drugs, gambling and other expenses, bank robberies have long plagued Southern California.

“California has four out of every 10 bank robberies nationally and most of those occur in Los Angeles,” Wipprecht said.

The region’s high robbery rate is blamed on several factors, including lots of targets--roughly 3,500 banks in a 40,000-square-mile area--and a sprawling freeway system that provides easy getaways.

The problem peaked in the early 1990s with the killings of several uniformed guards at Los Angeles area banks.

“We all said, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” Wipprecht said. “We asked ourselves ‘What do we need to do to stop this problem?’ and then we did it.”

As a result, Los Angeles police began sharing their gang intelligence with the banking industry, which in turn loosened the reins on its release of information. Police investigators were also able to infiltrate some of the gangs and make key arrests. At the same time, federal prosecutors made bank robberies a priority and sought especially tough sentences.

“They were able to put some of the gang leaders away and not just for a few years, but for 20 or more years,” Wipprecht said. “It really sent a message to the gangs that, ‘Yeah, you can get some quick cash, but you’re going to go away for a long time.’ ”

For the first time, banks took the step of sharing robbery information not only with police but also with competitors, including frequency rates, suspect descriptions and amounts stolen during the robberies.

“The main thing was the information sharing,” said Dominick Albano, spokesman for the California Bankers Assn. “We found that the banks weren’t talking to each other, much less law enforcement.”

Banks also stepped up security by hiring more guards and installing bulletproof teller shields. “It’s been a proven winner,” Hoos said of both the newly forged relationships and added security measures.

Wipprecht said that so far this year Wells Fargo has experienced a 40% drop in robberies at its more than 600 branches.

State-of-the-art surveillance cameras have also been added to banks, some of which have adopted a policy of having one camera for every two tellers. “Today’s technology has really allowed us to get a better picture of crooks,” Albano said.

Albano and others said they have also learned to use the media to their advantage, and attributed some arrests to newspapers and television stations disseminating photos of robbery suspects.

That’s what happened last March when the FBI released pictures of a suspect dubbed the “briefcase gun bandit,” who was wanted for at least 19 robberies, including many at Ventura Boulevard banks in the western San Fernando Valley.

Several days after a photo of the suspect was published in local newspapers and broadcast on TV, a man identifying himself as the briefcase bandit called police on a cellular phone to say that he was on his way to surrender. He did just that.

Jay Carlton Brammer, 24, of Moorpark later pleaded guilty to six robbery counts.

Offering cash rewards for information on suspects has long proven an unbeatable incentive for potential witnesses to step forward, and banking officials say they are offering more than ever.

A $40,000 reward was presented in May to an anonymous informant whose tip led to the arrest of “the Shootist,” a bank robber so notorious that the FBI held regional conferences on how to capture him. The nickname came from the thief’s unnerving habit of firing a trademark warning shot into each bank’s ceiling.

Alleged “Shootist” Johnny Madison William Jr., 43, and his wife, Carolyn Marie Williams, 34, were suspected of having taken more than $750,000 from 56 banks in California, Washington and Texas. The couple, who were arrested in Seattle last July, subsequently pleaded guilty to committing one armed robbery and agreed to admit to four others.

“There was no panacea to stop bank robberies on its own,” the Los Angeles Police Department’s Grayson said, in reference to the information sharing, publicity and rewards. “It was a collective entity working together.”

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Bank Robbery Decline

The number of bank robberies in Los Aneles has dropped since 1992. In the San Fernando Valley, bank robberies are also declining--there were 49 the first half of this year, compared to 80 in the first six months of last year. Violent takeover robberies, in which armed thieves hold a bank’s customers and employees hostage, have also dropped.

Number of Southland bank robberies:

1985: 1051

1992: 2641

Customers/employees shot:

1992: 6

1993: 1

1994: 5

Total takeovers:

1992: 448

1993: 435

1994: 206

Source: FBI