Bank Robber Slain After Setting Fire

A gunman who robbed a bank Friday was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies in a hail of gunfire as he ran from a burning apartment building in which he had barricaded himself, authorities said.

The bizarre rampage began in a strip mall with the lunchtime robbery of a bank and ended minutes later and blocks away in a quiet hillside neighborhood, where more than 100 rounds of ammunition sent startled residents running and ducking for cover.

“It’s pretty scary,” said Jennifer Higginbotham, who was drawn to her balcony by the staccato of gunshots and screaming sirens. “It’s like we’re in the middle of L.A. It’s not Dana Point, for sure.”

The gunman, who was not immediately identified, was shot once in the head and several times in the body. He was pronounced dead at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in nearby Mission Viejo.

The ordeal began at 11:22 a.m. at a Bank of America branch near a supermarket at Pacific Coast Highway and Del Prado Avenue, when someone inside tripped a silent alarm. Nearby merchants and shoppers with cell phones simultaneously called 911 after spotting a well-dressed man walk into the bank wearing a mask.

“He looked like a cartoon character,” said a pizza delivery man who gave his name only as Bernie. He said he watched the masked man climb from the car and walk into the bank. Soon, people inside had their hands up in the air, he said.

The first sheriff’s deputy to arrive watched the masked man run from the bank carrying a semiautomatic gun and a bag of money and jump into the passenger side of a white pickup parked nearby, Sheriff Mike Carona said.

Deputies chased the car for several blocks before the gunman stopped and fled on foot. As he ran toward a two-story stucco apartment building, deputies shot at him, Carona said.

Deputies immediately took the driver of the truck into custody. They released him after determining late Friday that he and his truck had been commandeered by the robber.

Meanwhile, the gunman had broken into a first-floor apartment, where he piled mattresses against the door then set them on fire.

As flames ripped through the building and smoke billowed into the air, dozens of deputies, special weapons officers and snipers closed in. They called to the robber to surrender, as fire crews and bomb squads arrived at the scene.

In the apartment directly above the one in flames, resident Nancy Griffin was getting ready to leave for the library when she heard the commotion, looked outside and saw officers everywhere.

“He’s below, he’s below,” the 65-year-old Griffin said the officers yelled to her. A deputy knocked on her door and told her to evacuate.

“Then we heard gunshots. It sounded like Vietnam. They said, ‘Get back in, get back in. Get on the floor.’ I crawled into the kitchen,” she said.

A few minutes later, she said, she was hurried out the front door. One deputy shielded her with his body and lowered her over a balcony to another standing on a trash bin below.

At some point, Carona said, the robber fled the apartment carrying a semiautomatic rifle, forced out by the fire and smoke that charred much of the complex. Griffin and other residents were left homeless by the blaze.

Authorities offered only sketchy details of the gun battle. But on a videotape shot by neighbor Vicky Steele, 10 seconds of unbroken gunfire can be heard off-camera. Then the robber--by then unmasked, with a shaved head and shirtless in jeans and white shoes--can be seen crouched in bushes behind the apartment complex.

Appearing to be unarmed on the videotape, the man pops up as if about to run, then gunfire resumes. The man topples over a small retaining wall, landing on his stomach on the pavement nearby, as gunfire sounds again. A voice heard on the videotape orders officers to hold their fire, but shooting soon resumes.

“It was just like a ricocheting all over,” the 39-year-old Steele said.

Deputy Jimmy Rubio was released after being treated at Mission Hospital, where shrapnel was removed from his face, Lt. John Brimmage said late Friday.

On the tape, once the gunfire subsides, the robber can be heard telling police he has been hit. As officers approach with guns drawn, the man, whose face is covered in blood, tells them, “I’m going to die.”

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Times staff writers Jason Song and Mai Tran contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Frantic Pursuit

Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a bank robbery suspect Friday after the man barricaded himself in an apartment, set it afire and came out with a semiautomatic gun, officials said.

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Source: O.C. Sheriff’s Dept.

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times