Robbery Suspects Pried Out of Car

Three bank-robbery suspects fleeing police collided with another vehicle Tuesday morning, blocking a busy Garden Grove intersection while rescue teams extracted them from their car as officers stood by with guns drawn.

The suspects’ dark blue Cadillac struck a green pickup at Knott and Chapman avenues about 10:45 a.m., demolishing both vehicles, police and witnesses said.

“It was very bad,” said Tom Le, 29, who saw the collision from the gas station where he works. “I saw parts going everywhere.”

The driver of the pickup, identified as Brett Stern, 19, of Garden Grove, was taken by ambulance to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was in fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The three men in the car were all in critical condition Tuesday night at local hospitals, authorities said.

As onlookers watched from behind yellow police tape, half a dozen police officers held guns on the suspects while rescue workers peeled back the roof of the car in which they were trapped. One by one, the suspects were extricated and transported to local hospitals, one by helicopter. The final person removed from the wreckage had been trapped for more than 30 minutes, investigators said.

Spokesman Steve Shirley of the Garden Grove Fire Department said the Cadillac was wrapped around a utility pole so that none of its doors would open. “Everything had to be forced,” he said.

The suspects’ identities had not been released late Tuesday, and charges had not yet been filed against them as the police investigation continued. All three men were in police custody on suspicion of a number of felony charges.

Garden Grove Police Lt. John Woods and other authorities gave this account of the events preceding the crash:

About 9:25 a.m., two men wearing ski masks entered the Farmers & Merchants Bank on Garden Grove Boulevard, vaulted over the counter and took money from cashiers. They fled with a third man who may have been the getaway driver in a Jeep Cherokee reported stolen in Los Angeles the night before and later found abandoned.

An hour later, the Union Bank of California at Brookhurst Street and Chapman Avenue was robbed by two men, one of whom handed a teller a note demanding money. No weapons were seen at either bank, but the two robbers in both incidents made threats, authorities said.

The getaway car in the second robbery was the Cadillac. A witness who saw two men running from the bank called police with a description of the vehicle, which investigators suspect is stolen.

“A patrol officer saw a vehicle that matched the description,” Woods said. “Based on that information, he called it in and attempted to make a vehicle stop.”

When the chase began, witnesses said, the suspects’ vehicle was traveling between 70 and 80 mph while the patrol car was going slower.

“I saw the Cadillac fly right past me, but then I saw there was an officer,” said Noel Garvin, who was leaving a parking lot when he saw the pursuit. “He was pretty far behind, like a block maybe, and with his flashers on.”

Hours after the crash, police continued to search the Cadillac for evidence.

“There was some money found, which we believe is tied back to the banks,” Woods said.

The FBI also is investigating.

Supervisor Jim Donckels of the agency’s Santa Ana office said his bank robbery detail is familiar with the three suspects.

“I know these were people that we had prior investigative interests in,” Donckels said. He would not elaborate.

Cheryl Mimura, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s field office in L.A., said the three men may have links to several other recent robberies.