Customers and Staff Get Back to Business at Bank

As the workweek began Monday at the Bank of America, it was not easy to forget there had been a war here.

Dozens of bullet holes in mailboxes, trees and signs provided stark evidence of one of the bloodiest bank robberies in city history.

But employees and customers seemed determined to put the ordeal aside and return to their workaday life.

“If you are afraid for your life, you cannot enjoy life,” said Gurbax Pannu, one of more than two dozen people held captive in the bank’s vault by the two gun-toting robbers who were later killed Friday.

Pannu was among the crowd of customers who returned to the bank Monday morning, including some who were completing transactions that were interrupted by the terrifying holdup. On Monday, Pannu needed cash for his two 7-Eleven stores, and, he said, to prove to himself he was undaunted by the experience.

“My wife told me: ‘Why must you go there this morning?’ ” Pannu said. “I said to her: ‘This is what I do every day.’ ”

He was joined by another man, Robert L. Allen, who had also been herded into the vault. Allen, 53, was waiting in line to deposit his paycheck when the robbers burst through the door and ordered everyone to the floor. Then they started firing. Allen remembers the sound of shell casings raining upon the brown tiles.

“I heard children crying and I thought they might be spraying the room indiscriminately,” said Allen. “I was making peace with my maker. I was prepared to join some of the people I had said goodbye to over the years. I thought I was going to be with my mother.”

So it is no surprise that in the days since the robbery, Allen has noticed he is sensitive to loud, sudden noises. While he was sitting in a bar over the weekend, someone came in the front door and gave a friendly shout.

“I must have jumped a foot out of my chair,” he said. Still, Allen declared, he will continue to conduct business at the bank, largely as a matter of pride.

“I’m not going to empower those two monsters,” he said. “I’m not going to allow them to do any more damage than they have already done.”

Inside the bank, most of the shattered plexiglass separating tellers from customers had been replaced. At virtually every window was a steady stream of customers. Bank of America spokesman Cary Walker said seven of the 10 tellers who witnessed the robbery Friday showed up for work on Monday.

“We’re very proud of our employees, very proud,” said Walker. Apparently, the bank is also proud of the Los Angeles Police Department. Chairman Dave Coulter announced that the firm will donate $50,000 to the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation and $50,000 to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Victim Assistance Program.

Outside the bank, too, it was business as usual for Mokhim Rasodi, 36, who worked his hot dog cart, as he has for the past three years.

Lucky for him, he was late to his usual spot in front of the bank on Friday. Police had cordoned off the street before he could park his cart. On Saturday morning, he was back.

“Saturday, Sunday and today are the busiest days I’ve ever had here,” said Rasodi.

Since the robbery, crowds have visited the bank, speaking in hushed tones of disbelief and sticking their fingers into the bullet holes that pock the building.

“These things happen all the time in Afghanistan,” said Rasodi, a native of that country. “For me, this is nothing.”

Walking around his tiny key shop across the street, Jose Haro, 63, pointed out more than 20 bullet holes Monday. He recalled hitting the floor after bullets started punching through the walls of his shop. Haro was pinned down for several minutes before police officers shuttled him out the back door and directed him away from the gunfight.

“I have a lot of headaches now. Last night I didn’t sleep at all,” he said. The migraines started over the weekend, but the pain reminds him that he is alive, he said.

Ed Hays of Evans & Son Construction was hired by the bank for the formidable job of repairing the bullet holes. He worked for a while on a light pole in front of the building that seemed beyond repair. He wrapped duct tape around a foot-long gash in the metal as if he were bandaging an open wound.

“They damn near chopped it down,” he muttered. “But today this is probably the safest bank in America.”