Man Shot at Bank ATM in Critical Condition

A 30-year-old Long Beach man was in critical condition Thursday after being shot in the head near an Anaheim automated teller machine the previous night.

Investigators said one or more assailants accosted Tony Gallant just after 11 p.m. Wednesday near a Wells Fargo ATM, but the circumstances surrounding the shooting were unclear. The victim’s wallet and a small amount of cash were in Gallant’s possession when police arrived, Anaheim Police Lt. Ted Labahn said. His car was parked nearby.

Gallant, a former U.S. Marine, had just left his job at the Home Depot in Anaheim and stopped at the nearby bank to get money for a video he planned to watch with his fiancee, said Tom Gallant, the victim’s brother.

“He just stopped briefly and that’s all it took,” Tom Gallant said. “He’s a decent-looking big guy. He always walked around thinking, ‘It won’t happen to me,’ which is what I always do. It could be anybody. If they have a gun in their hand, they don’t care.”

Tom Gallant said the family has mounted a constant vigil at his brother’s bedside at UCI Medical Center in Orange. While the bullet remains lodged in Tony Gallant’s head, he is moving his arms and legs and recognizes family members, his brother said.

“I say, ‘This is Tommy. I’m here.’ And he says, ‘OK, OK,’ ” Gallant said. “He thrashes around like he’s having a bad dream.”

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Kathleen Shilkret said the bank machine where Gallant was shot--in the 2200 block of West Lincoln Avenue--had a mounted security camera that may have captured an image of the suspect.

Gallant’s family urged any witnesses to contact Anaheim police.

“Hopefully, somebody will come forward with some information,” Tom Gallant said.

The shooting--a rare occurrence but one that strikes fear into all ATM customers--prompted a call for consumer caution by banking officials.

“We stress that everyone take care going to an ATM at night, and be aware of their surroundings,” said David Burgess, spokesman for the California Bankers Assn. in San Francisco, which regularly gives presentations on ATM safety to community groups. “At night, don’t go alone.”

Shilkret said Wells Fargo regularly sends out safety tips with customer statements, as do Bank of America and others. California legislation that took effect in 1991 regulates the lighting and landscaping at ATM machines in order to minimize the potential for assaults.

Bank of America spokesman Harvey Radin said his bank has a “rapid response team” that investigates all incidents of ATM crime and “if we need to make any changes at all to enhance safety, then we do that.”

Banking officials said the chances of being assaulted at one of the nation’s estimated 105,000 ATM machines are less than the chances of being carjacked or hit by a bullet in a drive-by shooting.

“The data is still good clean data that there is one ATM crime per 2 million transactions,” said Boris Melnikoff, director of security for Wachovia Corp., an Atlanta-based bank holding company and a member of the American Bankers’ Assn.’s security committee.

A 1992 survey by the California Bankers Assn. found that 499 ATM crimes occurred statewide out of 599 million transactions at 6,677 machines--or one crime in 1.2 million transactions. The figures are the association’s most recent, Burgess said.

Law enforcement officials said the shooting should not spark undue alarm about the hazards of ATMs.

Labahn said the shooting is the city’s most severe case of ATM-related crime he can recall, and other police departments concurred.

“I don’t have a sense that there’s an inordinate amount of ATM robberies,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson. “We see more robberies occurring at other areas--on streets and at storefronts and things like that.”

“I can’t even think of one,” said Huntington Beach Lt. Dan Johnson. “But you feel a bit like a giraffe at a water hole in the Serengeti [National Park in Tanzania] when you go to one. You think, ‘I don’t see a lion, but do I really want to bend down and get this drink?’ ”