4 Robbers Escape After Takeover-Style Bank Heist

Three men wearing ski masks stormed into a local Bank of America on Friday morning in an aggressive takeover robbery and escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The men shouted, “Get down! Get down!” as they rushed into the bank on Hillcrest Drive about 9:40 a.m., authorities said. One of the bandits approached the bank manager, ordered her to the floor and asked where the cash was located. Two other bandits then snatched cash from teller drawers behind the lobby counter before the three fled the building.

The men, plus a fourth person who waited in a getaway car outside, are still at large, authorities said. Nearly a dozen employees and customers were in the bank at the time, but no one was injured.

Witnesses saw no weapons, though takeover-style robberies by unarmed bandits are rare, said FBI Special Agent Gary Blevins, who is investigating the case with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Senior Deputy Harold Hanley described the robbery as a “definitely aggressive takeover” in which the robbers intended to “surprise and confuse people.”

The men escaped in a 1984 Oldsmobile Delta, reported stolen in Los Angeles, he said. Authorities, who arrived at the bank one minute after learning of the robbery, later located the car less than a block from the bank.

Deputies said the men left the Oldsmobile in an alley behind a nearby bedding store where they had stationed a second getaway car, possibly a white Chevy Blazer.

Hanley believes Friday’s robbery is Thousand Oaks’ first takeover-style attack since 39-year-old bank teller Monica Lynn Leech was fatally shot in the head during an April 1997 robbery at Western Financial Bank.

It was unclear whether the bandits who robbed the Hillcrest Drive branch Friday were connected with recent bank robberies in Agoura Hills, authorities said.

The Hillcrest Drive incident is the third Ventura County bank robbery this year, Blevins said. He said the county had 12 bank robberies in 1999. Officials could not say how many of the past incidents involved takeover-style attacks.

Aggressive robberies like Friday’s are rare, officials said. Usually, suspects hand a note to a bank teller demanding cash. The jobs are easier to pull off because they can involve only one bandit who does not need to take control of the entire bank.

Although the wave of chaos and confusion that overtakes customers and employees during a takeover bank robbery benefits bandits, “it involves more subjects and it has to be a lot more orchestrated. It’s a more complicated robbery,” Hanley said.

After the robbery, customers were stopped by a string of yellow police tape over the bank’s front doors while sheriff’s deputies milled about in the lobby. Some patrons shook their heads in disbelief and drove away.

“This was a shock to me, really,” said customer Lideia Torres, 69, of Thousand Oaks. “I thought they were painting inside,” she said, after she saw the police tape.

The bank opens at 9 a.m. Authorities do not know whether the bandits chose the morning hour for the robbery because they expected few customers in the lobby, but they said robbers commonly hit banks on Fridays when more cash changes hands.

A bank employee would not comment on the incident.

Ventura County Crime Stoppers is offering up to $1,000 for information leading to arrests and criminal complaints in the case. Authorities encourage those with information to call 494-TALK in Thousand Oaks and Moorpark and 987-TALK in Camarillo, Oxnard and Port Hueneme.