2 Robbers Slain After Bank Heist Identified

Police said they have identified two masked riflemen who laid siege to a North Hollywood neighborhood, describing them Saturday as the same pair who served short jail sentences in 1993 on weapons charges and who are believed to be the “AK-47 bandits” who robbed two San Fernando Valley banks last May.

Glendale police said the duo--shot to death by Los Angeles police Friday at the end of a furious gun battle--were arrested in October 1993 after a routine traffic stop led to the discovery of a cache of weapons and ammunition in the men’s car.

Officials declined to identify the men, but a source close to the investigation said they were Emil Dechebal Matasareanu, 30, and Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., 26. At the time of the Glendale arrest, both men lived in Altadena.

Officers had pulled over the men’s rented car for speeding and recovered two AK-47 assault rifles, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, ski masks, bulletproof vests, two police scanners and several other weapons. Without releasing the men’s names, Sgt. Rick Young of the Glendale Police Department said the two men killed Friday in North Hollywood were the same ones arrested in the traffic stop.

In that incident, both men were armed with loaded 9-millimeter pistols but didn’t attempt to shoot, said Young. The pair had initially faced up to eight years in prison for conspiracy to commit robbery and unlawful weapons activity, both felonies. They were convicted only of a weapons charge and sentenced to less than four months in jail, Young said.

Los Angeles police remained convinced Saturday that the men acted alone when they burst into a Bank of America branch on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and then terrorized an entire neighborhood with a barrage of automatic weapons fire. Eleven police officers and six civilians were injured in Friday’s events. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams said more information about the gunmen could be released after the FBI and the LAPD’s robbery-homicide division take some “actions” over the weekend. He did not elaborate.

On Saturday night, Los Angeles police officers went to the Altadena home of Matasareanu’s mother, Valerie Nicolescu, and told her that her son was one of the dead gunmen in the North Hollywood shootout. Minutes after the officers entered the home, a woman’s screams could be heard from the outside.

Later, the visibly stricken mother came outside with a friend and described her son as very intelligent. “I tried to raise him the best I could,” said Nicolescu, a former opera singer in her native Romania. “He tried to help me. He was very good.”

She said she was caught off guard by the news of her son’s apparent involvement in Friday’s chaotic events. She said she had not spotted her son’s face in the media despite the massive coverage.

Nicolescu said she had not seen her son in recent days.

She said that her son’s problems may have stemmed from a 1994 incident in which authorities closed a care center for the mentally disabled that she operated--with her son’s help--at the Altadena residence. Authorities acted after neighbors complained about problems, but Nicolescu said the accusations were false.

She added that authorities also forced Matasareanu to leave the residence, forcing him onto the streets.

The grieving Nicolescu suggested that the other heavily armed gunman at the shootout lured her son into a life of crime, saying Phillips was a “bad guy who got my son.”

Police on Saturday noted the remarkable similarities between Friday’s assault and two robberies at Bank of America branches in the San Fernando Valley in May. In both cases, beefy gunmen in dark ski masks and clothing barged into the banks and, shooting into the ceiling, ordered patrons onto the ground. Those tactics closely match the ones used by Friday’s assailants.

The first of those crimes was committed by three robbers, who made off with a suitcase so heavy with cash that they had to drag it along the ground, a witness said at the time. The second theft involved just two robbers.

Williams held his news conference outside the bank that was at the epicenter of Friday’s terror, standing before a squad of beaming police officers in uniform. As equilibrium began to return, officers talked with relief, even some ebullience, about how decisively they responded to the crisis. And relieved bank customers returned to reclaim their cars.

They were outnumbered, though, by nearby residents who returned to the scene to rehash the adrenaline-charged hours of the day before and by outsiders who wanted to retrace the paths of gunmen and police. Hundreds of people strolled the neighborhood, exchanging stories, poking fingers in bullet holes and watching as cleanup crews hosed away piles of shattered glass.

“The policemen saved our lives, and I want to say, ‘Thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you,” said Noubar Torossian, standing outside his bullet-scarred home on Archwood Street.

It wasn’t only the locals who were reliving Friday’s shootout, as hundreds of curiosity seekers from as far away as Irvine re-created the route of one gunman--strolling from the bank and then around the corner along Archwood Street. Along the route, adults and children scavenged spent slugs out of the earth and studied the furrow of dirt where one of the gunmen fell.

What brought them out?

“Curiosity, and to get a souvenir, dude,” said Miguel Deniz, 19, of Van Nuys, who used his pocketknife to dig some bullet fragments out of a yellow house. “Something to remember 20 years from now.”

The confused feelings provoked by the episode--the thrill of real-life drama and the repulsion of the violence--was evident in one 13-year-old boy who fondled an AK-47 slug.

“I’ve never held one before. It feels good,” said Keith Johnson, 13, of Van Nuys, who caught himself and added: “People shouldn’t do this to other people.”

Los Angeles police officers took an official stance that they were just carrying on business as usual, but they had trouble concealing their pride in how they had responded to the robbery.

Bouquets of flowers from thankful residents dotted the North Hollywood station, which had launched the initial response. Several officers said privately they believed the shootout proved they can master a difficult situation.

“Our guys did good,” said one sergeant to another.

Although the LAPD response to the crime drew wide praise, it was clear that the incident would not go unscrutinized. Police officials were asked Saturday why a nearby ambulance had not been rushed to help one robber who appeared to survive his shooting for several minutes.

Police Cmdr. Tim McBride, the department’s chief spokesman, said that police believed a third heavily armed suspect was in the neighborhood, a situation that would have left any ambulance crew at risk.

Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein, Jim Newton, Ann O’Neill, James Rainey, George Ramos and Mack Reed contributed to this story.

* ALONE ON THE STREETS: An elderly couple wandered the streets for hours after being ordered out of their house. A26