2 Arrested After Chase in Robbery of Bank

After a car chase that briefly shut down the Ventura Freeway, officers arrested two men Tuesday on suspicion of robbing a bank, authorities said.

Two armed men wearing masks and dark clothing held up a Washington Mutual branch in the 300 block of East Esplanade Drive and fled with two bags of cash shortly before 3 p.m., said Senior Officer Cliff Waer of the Oxnard Police Department.

The bank is in a small building in a financial plaza parking lot near the freeway along Vineyard Avenue. No one was injured, but staff members at a day-care center a block away locked the doors after getting word of the heist.

“It was a takeover-style robbery, and they were in and out in seconds,” said FBI Special Agent Brent Robbins.

The suspects surrendered about 10 minutes after the robbery began when their car was pulled over in the southbound lanes of the freeway near Rice Avenue, police said.

Keith Armstrong, 39, and Star Premmer, 19, both of Los Angeles, were arrested on suspicion of armed robbery. They were being held at the Oxnard police station late Tuesday, and bail had not been set.

Authorities credited the swift arrests to witnesses who spotted the getaway car and to a teller who activated a silent alarm when she saw two masked men outside the bank.

During the pursuit, a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department helicopter hovered above freeway as California Highway Patrol officers fanned out and closed a two-mile stretch between Central and Rice avenues, causing backups for several miles in both directions.

At a gas station across from the bank, mechanic Simon Edwards said, “We rushed in and called 911, and I was very nervous” when a woman came running toward him screaming about a robbery. The woman had been standing outside the bank when two masked men ran past her.

According to Robbins and Oxnard officers, the robbers yelled, “Get down!” several times at the two dozen employees and customers inside the bank before they hopped the counter and cleaned out several teller drawers.

Oxnard police said witnesses told them each man carried a black semiautomatic handgun. It was unclear how much money was stolen, but authorities said all of it was recovered from inside the suspects’ car.

A woman who asked not to be identified said she saw two masked men arrive while she was waiting in the parking lot for her 18-year-old daughter, who was making a deposit.

The woman said she saw a man pull up in front of the bank and drop off two masked men, who ran inside and then reappeared in the parking lot in less than a minute. Oxnard police and federal authorities gave conflicting accounts of whether they were searching for a third suspect.

The woman said she could see her daughter sobbing through the bank’s glass doors after the robbery. The pair did not leave the bank for about an hour so they could give police their statements.

The robbers ran to a nearby hotel parking lot, where they left in their getaway car, police said.

Waer said several witnesses outside the hotel saw the men getting into the car and alerted Officer Brian Ellison, who initiated the freeway chase.

“[Ellison] was following the lead of the people who were pointing and that was lucky for us,” Waer said.

Late Tuesday, federal authorities were continuing their investigation. Robbins said the suspects are not believed to be connected to any previous bank holdups in the county--Tuesday’s is the fourth since Jan. 1, including two last week.

On Feb. 15, two Bank of America branches were robbed within half an hour of each other in Simi Valley and Oxnard.

The branch in the 1800 block of North Oxnard Boulevard was robbed about 2:40 p.m. by a gunman described as black, 5 feet 7, about 150 pounds and 30 to 35 years old. Witnesses said he wore a burgundy ear-length wig, a black suit with a black tie, black gloves and large dark sunglasses. He escaped in a red sedan driven by a woman, and the car had a 5- or 6-year-old child in the front seat, authorities said.

Half an hour later, the Bank of America in the 2800 block of Cochran Street, Simi Valley, was held up by a man described as Latino, in his early 30s and weighing about 200 pounds. He was wearing a black knit ski cap, a T-shirt and jeans.

No one was hurt in those robberies, which authorities believe were unrelated.

The year’s first robbery occurred last month at a credit union in Camarillo, Robbins said.

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Surman is a Times staff writer, and Wolcott is a correspondent.