Slain Suspect Had Prior Robbery Conviction

The 71-year-old Anaheim man shot and killed by police after allegedly robbing a bank had promised a federal judge in 1989 that he would never appear in court again following his conviction in a Buena Park bank holdup.

The slain man, identified Tuesday as Joseph Vincent Tittone, made the pledge after pleading guilty to robbing a Great Western Savings Bank of $10,400 in December 1988, federal court records show. Tittone also was charged with two other, subsequent Orange County holdups, but those charges were dropped in a plea bargain, records show.

“I assure you, regardless of what sentence you impose, I will perform . . . honorably and you, nor any court, will never see me present for committing any crime again,” Tittone said in a handwritten, error-filled note to U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.

Police have released few details about Tittone’s actions during the confrontation with three Anaheim police officers, but a police spokesman said Tittone pointed a pellet gun at officers.

Tittone was shot four times in the torso and once in the foot by officers who tracked him from the scene of a bank robbery back to the carport at his trailer at Del Este Mobile Home Estates, according to Lt. Ted LaBahn.

Tittone made off with an undisclosed amount of money Monday from a Wells Fargo branch near his home and was armed with a pellet gun, police said Tuesday.

LaBahn said the officers, who have not been identified, had to make a “split-second decision” and likely had no way to distinguish Tittone’s gun from a more lethal weapon.

“We didn’t even know it was [a pellet gun] until the crime lab people came and picked it up and examined it,” LaBahn said. “As an officer in the field, if it looks like a handgun, smells like a handgun, you can’t wait to look down the barrel to see if it’s real. It’s too late by then.”

The three officers are on administrative leave for a minimum of three days and will meet with counselors to gauge whether they are ready to return to duty, LaBahn said.

The department has launched an internal investigation into the matter and the Orange County district attorney’s office has begun a separate inquiry, both routine procedures in officer-involved shootings.

Witness Joe Sonoqui, a resident and former manager at the park, said he watched the officers bark orders at Tittone in the moments before the shooting. The three officers “flinched in unison,” as if in response to something Tittone did, and then opened fire, Sonoqui said.

Neighbors said Tittone’s wife, Marcia Knight, had suffered a stroke in June and the couple was beset by financial problems, including a recently bounced rent check.

The native of Kansas City, Mo., and eldest of seven siblings once himself worked in banks, first as a messenger for the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles, then as a teller at a Bank of America branch. He began adult life in the service, enlisting in the Marine Corps at age 17, within a week after Pearl Harbor was bombed. After 12 years in the Marines and Army, Tittone was honorably discharged as a U.S. Army captain in 1955.

He returned to civilian life only to be confronted with a gambling addiction and charges of check fraud, the court records and probation reports show.

Tittone crisscrossed the country--apparently trying to stay a step ahead of the law--and was being sought by at least four police agencies when he was arrested in Los Angeles for writing bad checks “all throughout the country,” a probation officer wrote.

A judge who sentenced him to state prison in 1957 wrote: “. . . This is a man of superior intelligence, of good family, a proud man, and he has gotten himself into very deep water; and part of it, I think he attributes himself, to gambling; that is where his money went.”

More than 30 years later, Tittone wrote to a federal judge seeking leniency for his Buena Park bank robbery conviction and said that his wife was “tragically, the person most victimized” by his life of crime. On a 1989 financial statement found in court documents, Tittone said he was unemployed and that Knight owned their mobile home and cars.

In requesting a federal public defender, Tittone wrote in his financial affidavit that his wife earned $1,600 a month and all bills were in his wife’s name. He said he contributed $300 a week during the times he was able to find work.

Knight was home Monday when her husband was gunned down outside their yellow and white mobile home, but she was not injured and is not a suspect in any crime, LaBahn said.

“We don’t think she was involved in any way, shape or form,” LaBahn said, adding that Knight was inside the mobile home and likely did not witness the shooting. Knight is staying with her son in Los Angeles County, neighbors said.

Some neighbors speculated that money woes and Knight’s ailments may have pushed Tittone to rob. But LaBahn said Tuesday that Tittone’s personal trials should be a moot subject.

“As far as the motive goes, that’s really not our concern in this type of case,” LaBahn said. “Why he did what he did is not important. Some people are saying he had money troubles. . . . Well, a lot of folks have financial hardships and they don’t go out and rob people.”

The image of Tittone presented by his affectionate neighbors is in stark contrast to the criminal career charted by court records. While some residents talked about his generosity with his home-cooked Italian dishes and doting attention to his pets, few if any knew about his ex-con background.

Tittone was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison and three years’ probation for the Buena Park bank robbery in December 1988. He had also been indicted on charges of robbing a Great Western Savings Bank in Buena Park of $13,125 and attempting to rob a Bank of America branch in Anaheim the same day.

FBI Special Agent David Struck investigated one of the Buena Park crimes and recalled Tittone because he was different from most suspects.

“There was nothing remarkable about him other than his age,” Struck said. “It’s not very often that we have bank robbers that old. That’s not common.”

Tittone also was convicted of check forgery in a 1983 Long Beach case, records show. Also, Tittone was sentenced to community service work and a fine in November 1993 after admitting to making annoying phone calls to employees or clients of Geometric Engineering Co., his former workplace, records show.

Times staff writers Alan Abrahamson, Lily Dizon, Anna Cekola and Len Hall also contributed to this story.