Hunt for Robber Forces Schools to Lock In Students
Children and teachers at three elementary schools near Seal Beach were locked inside for six hours Wednesday as police officers with dogs combed the area for a bank robbery suspect.
The incident began about 11:30 a.m. when five men armed with handguns held up a Union Bank branch on Adams Boulevard in Huntington Beach, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said. The men escaped in two cars with an undisclosed amount of money.
One of the cars was stopped on the northbound San Diego Freeway at Cherry Avenue in Long Beach and its two occupants arrested without incident. The driver of the second car led police on a 100-mph chase on the freeway to Seal Beach Boulevard, where the car exited into Rossmoor, an unincorporated area near Seal Beach, and stopped on Inverness Avenue. The three suspects ran through a backyard where they held a resident at gunpoint, then fled separately, Amormino said.
Two were caught, he said, but the third eluded police and remained at large late Wednesday.
Lee, Weaver and Rossmoor elementary schools were “locked down” about noon.
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