Bank Robber Bled to Death Unnecessarily

Emil Matasareanu, one of two armed robbers who raided a North Hollywood bank and then engaged police in a chilling televised shootout last year, slowly and unnecessarily bled to death because some of the officers involved made a series of mistakes and some of the firefighters violated their department’s guidelines for dealing with such situations, a Times investigation has found.

Perhaps the most critical of these mistakes occurred when a Los Angeles Police Department officer erroneously told city Fire Department rescuers that he thought Matasareanu was dead, and emergency medical technicians accepted that assessment without examining the suspect. Later, when the rescuers discovered that Matasareanu, in fact, was still alive, the Fire Department’s dispatchers never were informed, according to one of the commanders on the scene.

As a result, Matasareanu, handcuffed and moaning in pain, lay bleeding in the street for nearly 30 minutes after firefighters at the scene realized he was alive, because dispatchers still assumed he was dead. By the time an ambulance sent to his aid arrived, it was too late. Matasareanu had succumbed to injuries that could have been treated with standard emergency care.

“You should see how sad it looks when someone is dying in the street and nobody cares,” said Dora Rubensky, an Archwood Street resident who watched the aftermath of the shootout from her frontyard.

Matasareanu and his accomplice, Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., were “bad guys,” she said, but “not animals.”

But Matasareanu’s preventable death did more than raise unsettling moral questions. It also denied investigators their chance to recover $1.7 million taken in three other robberies in which Matasareanu and Phillips are thought to have been involved. Moreover, the dead man’s children have sued the city, alleging that the police denied him medical attention.

Contrasting Accounts of What Happened

City authorities’ version of these events contrasts sharply with The Times’ reconstruction of the incident, which was pieced together from hours of taped police and Fire Department radio transmissions, video footage and photographs, the previously unavailable report of an LAPD investigation and interviews with eyewitnesses.

For example, police and Fire Department officials have said that rescuers in the first ambulance to reach the scene opted to take a wounded citizen to the hospital because his injuries were severe but treatable, while Matasareanu appeared to have little chance of survival.

Authorities also said they could not send a second ambulance to pick up Matasareanu because the scene where he lay wounded was a so-called kill zone in which other suspects were believed to be at large.

The Times’ findings contradict this official version on these key points:

* Rescuers were in little danger on the block where Matasareanu lay, because the area had been secured by a dozen or more armed police officers, according to witness accounts and Fire Department communication tapes.

* Matasareanu did not appear to be on the verge of death, according to witness accounts and statements from police officers at the scene. He was talking to police, moving his legs, lifting his head and moaning for help. At one point, a detective kicked him twice because he thought the wounded robber was trying to stand up and walk away.

* Rescuers, tapes of Fire Department radio messages show, were fully aware that the citizen they took to the hospital instead of the critically wounded Matasareanu had suffered only minor, not life-threatening, injuries.

* Police let a critical 20 minutes elapse after the first ambulance departed before calling to remind a dispatcher that the wounded robber still needed treatment, police communication tapes show. Though Matasareanu was just a few minutes from death at that point, the officer told the dispatcher to send an ambulance only “when there’s one available,” according to the LAPD communication tapes.

In the suit filed on behalf of the dead man’s two young children, plaintiffs’ lawyer Stephen Yagman alleges that LAPD officers “coldbloodedly murdered” Matasareanu by denying him medical attention. But though the action alleges misconduct by the officers at the scene, it is silent on the role of the fire-rescue personnel involved.

However, Don Vincent, the deputy city attorney defending Los Angeles in the action, said numerous officers called an ambulance to pick up Matasareanu, but that Fire Department officials canceled their requests.

Battalion Cmdr. R.C. Wilmot, who was in charge of fire-rescue operations during the shootout, said in a recent interview that firefighters rely heavily on police to tell them when an area is safe enough for an ambulance.

Wilmot conceded that his department’s rescuers--emergency medical technicians Allen R. Skier and Jesse Ortiz--should not have reported Matasareanu dead, as they did five minutes after arriving on the scene, without at least taking his pulse.

More troubling, Wilmot said, is that when the two rescuers discovered Matasareanu was still alive, they nonetheless left Archwood Street without calling another ambulance.

“I thought it was strange,” he said. “But . . . I wasn’t there.”

Wilmot said he requested a departmental investigation of the incident, but has not been informed of its results.

“I don’t even want to know,” he said.

Fire Department Chief William Bamattre declined to comment for this story, citing the pending lawsuit against the city. The Fire Department also declined to release any details from its investigation into the actions of Skier and Ortiz.

The two emergency medical technicians--acting on their supervisors’ advice--also declined to comment. However, in their official internal reports on that day’s events, Skier and Ortiz say they did call an ambulance.

But Wilmot said no such request was received; nor is there any evidence of such a call on the tape recordings that city officials say covered all police and fire communications involving the shootout.

Two weeks after the shootout, Skier and Ortiz were recommended for meritorious service awards. Fire Department officials declined to comment on the status of the awards.

Bloody Aftermath of Violent Battle

The North Hollywood shootout, in which 10 police officers and two civilians were hurt, started at 9:17 a.m. Feb. 28, 1997, five blocks from the quiet residential street where Matasareanu later died.

The Bank of America branch at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Archwood Street had been open only 17 minutes when Matasareanu and Phillips burst in. Nerves steadied by doses of phenobarbital and carrying fully automatic AK-47 assault rifles, the robbers sprayed bullets indiscriminately outside the bank.

As police officers and citizens fell, the news helicopters hovering above the scene broadcast live film of the carnage across the country.

Matasareanu and Phillips, wrapped in bulletproof body armor, tried to escape east onto Archwood Street--Phillips on foot, Matasareanu in their getaway car, a white Chevrolet sedan.

Response at the Scene

Phillips died first and by his own hand, firing a round from his 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol into his head. That was at 9:52 a.m. on Archwood, less than a block from the bank. Simultaneously, a police officer’s bullet slammed into the robber’s body, severing his spinal cord.

As Phillips fell, Matasareanu steered the crippled sedan--two of its tires flattened by police gunfire--four blocks down Archwood, stopping at a spot between Hinds and Morella avenues. There, the fleeing gunman commandeered a Jeep pickup driven by 52-year-old William Marr of Burbank. Matasareanu unleashed a burst of fire from his AK-47, shooting through his own windshield at the Jeep’s driver. Marr, struck by flying glass and shrapnel, jumped from his truck and ran for cover.

As Matasareanu tried to start Marr’s Jeep, he saw a black-and-white squad car loaded with SWAT officers bearing down on the truck. The robber got out of the Jeep and crouched behind his disabled Chevy as the officers screeched to a halt nearby, simultaneously opening fire.

For two minutes, the normally quiet North Hollywood neighborhood became a war zone, as police and Matasareanu, just a car length apart, blasted away at each other with automatic rifles.

Matasareanu was shot 29 times, and surrendered. Officers handcuffed him at 9:59 a.m. and immediately called ambulances to pick up both the gunman and his victim, Marr.

The Fire Department responded by dispatching two units.

The time was 10:01 a.m., according to Fire Department records, and the gun battle had been over for two minutes.

Seven minutes later, fire officials decided the ambulances’ destination was “too hot” because of reports that suspects still were at large in the area, Wilmot, the Fire Department’s incident commander, said.

So a dispatcher ordered both ambulances back to their fire station.

The danger prompting their recall was not visibly apparent to the police officers and residents, then milling around the scene on Archwood Street, where Matasareanu lay bleeding.

There, officers stood with their guns holstered. Some, with their arms crossed or with hands in their pockets, appeared relaxed, photos and video footage show. Detectives processed the crime scene, chalking bullet casings, measuring distances and scribbling notes for their reports.

A 3-year-old girl played on her family’s front patio while her grandfather, Noubar Torossian, stood videotaping the scene not more than 15 paces from where Matasareanu lay on the street moaning, “Help, help, help.”

Neighbors said they stood in their frontyards watching, some wondering whether anyone would ever tend the wounded bank robber.

And Wilmot’s own men, who had ignored the order issued at 10:08 to return to the fire station, reported to the incident commander by radio that police had the situation well in hand.

“We have enough PD coverage here,” Ortiz reported at 10:13 a.m, according to a Fire Department communication tape.

Though Wilmot now concedes the reports of additional suspects at large later proved to be false, he said that, at the time, they created a legitimate fear that rescuers’ lives would be endangered if he sent them to Archwood and Morella.

But because Skier and Ortiz chose to ignore Wilmot’s order, the question of how dangerous the scene might be became moot.

A Series of Mistakes

As Skier and Ortiz rolled onto the scene, two critical mistakes that led directly to Matasareanu’s death occurred.

The two rescuers were met by a “panicked police officer”--still unidentified--who told them he thought Matasareanu was dead, according to an internal Fire Department memorandum. Skier, who glanced at Matasareanu from 50 feet away, said in his report that the suspect appeared “lifeless.”

But witnesses told The Times that, even then, Matasareanu’s constant movements and moaning made it abundantly clear that he was alive when Skier and Ortiz arrived.

In fact, several officers dealt directly with Matasareanu while the Fire Department technicians were on the scene.

Det. Jorge Armenta saw the fallen gunman moving from side to side and “feared that Matasareanu was attempting to assume a standing position,” he said in a statement to LAPD investigators.

When Armenta told the robber to stop moving, Matasareanu replied, “F--- you,” the statement said.

So Armenta “prodded” Matasareanu with his right foot to get him to stop moving. A short time later, the suspect began moving again, and Armenta once more “prodded” him into submission.

Another detective actually interrogated the suspect, according to an LAPD investigative report.

“Hey listen, pal. . . . It’s all over with. . . . How many people are there . . . besides you?” asked Det. James Vojtecky, a 28-year department veteran.

“Shoot me in the head,” Matasareanu said.

Vojtecky continued questioning Matasareanu for several minutes, at one point helping him shift positions. He then ordered Officer John Futrell to guard him.

Futrell, in a sworn deposition earlier this month, said it was obvious to him that Matasareanu was alive during the entire 22 minutes Skier and Ortiz were on scene.

Yet Ortiz, in the same radio transmission during which he described the scene as secured by the police, reported that Matasareanu was dead.

“We have one suspect down DB,” he told dispatchers at 10:13, using Fire Department jargon for dead body.

Minutes later, Skier, while tending to other patients, thought he saw Matasareanu take a breath, according to an internal Fire Department memo. Skier said he approached the gunman and found that he indeed was breathing.

Los Angeles Fire Department policy requires rescuers to attend to the most seriously injured viable victim at the scene of an accident or shooting. In this case, that patient was Matasareanu with his 29 gunshot wounds. Dr. Marshall Morgan, chief of emergency medicine at UCLA Medical Center, who examined the dead man’s autopsy report for The Times, said the suspect’s wounds were clearly survivable--if he had been taken to a hospital for “standard emergency care” in a timely fashion.

But Skier and Ortiz, who subsequently reported they felt they were in extreme danger, decided to leave Matasareanu and take Marr to a hospital.

In internal Fire Department reports filed in March 1997, Skier said that Marr was in “critical” condition, while Ortiz reported that Matasareanu was on the brink of death and stood little chance of being saved.

Their subsequent written evaluation of Marr’s condition, however, does not square with a radio transmission Ortiz sent from the scene.

“We have one civilian with minor gunshot wounds,” Ortiz reported, referring to Marr. “He’s alert, oriented and in stable condition.”

Three eyewitnesses told The Times that they thought rescuers could have, and should have, done more to save Matasareanu.

“They could have at least treated him,” said Jose Hernandez, a 32-year-old restaurant worker who was driving behind Marr when Matasareanu directed a burst of gunfire in their direction.

“Why they didn’t help, I don’t know,” said Torossian, 56, the man with the video camera.

Rubensky, 69, the Archwood Street resident, said she was so concerned she actually complained to the Fire Department rescuers.

“I said, ‘He’s hurt. Why don’t you get him some help?’ ”

Her plea was ignored, she said.

At 10:30 a.m., Ortiz and Skier left without Matasareanu, according to Fire Department incident reports. Ortiz said he called for an ambulance before their departure.

But Wilmot said fire-rescue dispatchers never received such a call, and that they continued to assume Matasareanu was dead.

Involvement of Police

The police officers on the scene didn’t do much to help Matasareanu either.

They did follow their department’s policy and state legal requirements by calling an ambulance immediately after the shooting stopped. But, as Matasareanu lay bleeding and calling for help, they did very little to hasten assistance.

Recordings of police radio transmissions from the scene contain no other calls for help from police after the initial requests--until it was too late.

And the LAPD had more than humane reasons to want to keep Matasareanu alive.

Practically from the moment the robbery started, top brass at the scene suspected that Matasareanu and Phillips were the gunmen who had committed four other bank or armored-car robberies that netted at least $1.7 million, Cmdr. Scott LaChasse, the LAPD’s incident supervisor, said.

Despite Matasareanu’s potential value to investigators, LaChasse acknowledged that he did not stay abreast of his condition after he was taken into custody. He and other top police officials were preoccupied, he said, with reports of additional suspects and with ensuring that all injured officers were receiving treatment.

“There was only so much we could do,” LaChasse said.

Officers at the scene say they did not ignore Matasareanu’s plight.

At least two police officers said in statements to LAPD investigators that they approached Ortiz or Skier and asked them to request another ambulance for the wounded suspect.

But neither Skier nor Ortiz mentioned any such request in their written statements about the incident. In fact, they said an officer initially steered them away from Matasareanu and directed them to Marr.

Later, when Skier attempted to approach Matasareanu, he reported, an officer turned him away. “Get the f--- out of here. There are suspects in the area,” said the officer, later identified by Skier as Vojtecky, the ranking officer at the scene.

Vojtecky, who has since retired and moved to Washington state, could not be reached for comment. But Vincent, the city attorney, said the detective told him “he could have [made the statement], but he didn’t remember.”

Wilmot said firefighters usually follow police orders at a crime scene.

“If the police tell us no, that means no,” he said.

After the ambulance left with Marr, Officer Futrell continued standing near Matasareanu. In an internal LAPD report, he said that he assumed an ambulance soon would arrive with help for the wounded bank robber.

Thus, he stood by the bleeding man for 20 minutes waiting, but never checking to see why help had not arrived.

By 10:52, according to LAPD communication tapes, Matasareanu had been in custody and bleeding for nearly an hour. At that point, Futrell said, he became “concerned” about Matasareanu. So he called an ambulance.

According to Police Department communication tapes, however, Futrell did not tell the dispatcher that Matasareanu’s condition was urgent.

“Make sure when there’s an ambulance available have him to respond to my location,” he said.

A few seconds later, according to the tape, Futrell reminded the dispatcher of his request for an ambulance, again adding “when there’s one available.”

The dispatcher asked, “Is it an officer or a citizen?”

Futrell responded, “It’s a suspect,” adding for the third time, “when there’s one available.”

When an ambulance finally was dispatched for the dying--perhaps already dead--Matasareanu at 11 a.m., it was sent on a “nonemergency” basis.

That was because, as Wilmot said, it was dispatched “to do paperwork on a DB.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Post-Shootout Chronology

The following chronology is based on police and Fire Department communication tapes, police officers’ and firefighters’ formal statements and interviews with civilian witnesses.

9:59 a.m.--Bleeding from 29 gunshot wounds, Emil Matasareanu surrenders to SWAT officers on Archwood Street between Hinds and Morella avenues.

10:01--Rescue Ambulance 875, with firefighter-emergency medical technicians Allen R. Skier and Jesse Ortiz, is dispatched to the scene.

10:04--Ambulance 89 also is dispatched.

10:08--Ambulances 875 and 89 are told to discontinue their run to Archwood and Morella. Skier and Ortiz, in Ambulance 875, ignore the order because they are approaching the scene and a police officer waves them in.

10:08-10:10--A police officer tells them that he thinks Matasareanu is dead. Ortiz notes that Matasareanu is “lying motionless, in a pool of blood.”

10:08-10:25--Witnesses see Matasareanu repeatedly moving head and legs and hear him moaning and pleading for help. A detective fears that Matasareanu may try to stand and “prods” him twice with his feet. Another detective interrogates him.

10:13 a.m.--Ortiz calls dispatcher: “We’re handling the incident on Archwood and Morella. We have one suspect down DB [dead body]. We have one civilian with a minor gunshot wound. We’ll handle. We have enough PD coverage here.”

10:25-10:30--Skier sees Matasareanu move and approaches him, but a police officer tells Skier, “Get the f--- out of here. There are suspects in the area.”

10:30--Skier and Ortiz leave, carrying civilian William Marr, who suffered minor head wounds from glass and bullet fragments, but leaving Matasareanu, who is still moving about and bleeding profusely.

10:52--Matasareanu nears death. Officer John Futrell asks dispatcher to send an ambulance for Matasareanu “when there’s one available.”

11:05--Ambulance 60, dispatched nonemergency, arrives at Archwood and Morella “to do paperwork on a DB.”

11:10--Matasareanu is pronounced dead.