Police Arrest 6 in 2 ‘Takeover’ Bank Robberies

Six suspects were arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of robbing two Orange County banks over the last month, holding customers and tellers at gunpoint and beating three bank tellers before fleeing with cash.

Two of the suspects are wanted in connection with an armed bank robbery Dec. 7 in Buena Park, where two tellers were punched in the face. One teller fell and broke her arm, officials said.

Police said all six suspects are also wanted in connection with a similar so-called “takeover” robbery at Home Bank of Los Alamitos on Nov. 30. Seven young men were involved in that robbery and a bank teller was beaten, Buena Park Police Sgt. Lloyd Schwengel said.

Buena Park and Los Alamitos police investigators teamed with federal agents and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies early Wednesday to serve search warrants on two residences in Paramount and one in Bellflower, Schwengel said.

Arrested at the two Paramount homes were D’veres Anton Walker, 18; Gregory Allan Vinegar, 20; Diondre Chapany Steptoe, 21; Joseph Wayman Sivers, 18; and a 17-year-old juvenile. Travelle Montae Hamblet, 19, was arrested in Bellflower.

During the 7 a.m. raid on one Paramount residence, police also seized a handgun believed to have been used in both robberies, Schwengel said.

During the Dec. 7 robbery, three men entered a Bank of America branch in the 8900 block of Knott Avenue. While one suspect held the customers and tellers at gunpoint, the other two brutally beat two tellers in the face, Schwengel said.

Lavon Allen Wright, 19, of Paramount was arrested shortly afterward by a Buena Park officer after a high-speed chase. He was turned over to FBI agents and charged with bank robbery.

After reviewing bank surveillance photos, investigators determined that some of the same robbers were at the Los Alamitos robbery. They tracked down Wright’s associates with the help of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Paramount, Schwengel said.

All the suspects are to be charged with bank robbery.

FBI officials said that while other bank robberies have decreased dramatically in Orange County, takeover robberies--where often-violent armed bandits hold customers and tellers at gunpoint and in many cases demand access to the vault and automated teller machines--have remained at the same level. Officials said there were 18 such robberies in the 1993-94 federal fiscal year. In the 1994-95 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, there also were 18 takeover robberies.

The robberies--which contrast markedly with the more common lone suspects who quietly demand cash of a single teller--are believed to be committed almost exclusively by Los Angeles County gang members, according to the FBI.

Schwengel said none of the money from either robbery has been recovered.