Police Wait for Robber Who Tried to Try Again

Police said they were waiting for a robber outside a savings and loan in Encino Friday morning because of the quick thinking of a teller.

Randy De Caro, 38, of Encino was arrested in front of Gibraltar Savings at 17801 Ventura Blvd. as he walked out with $560, police said. He was jailed on suspicion of robbery and was being held in the Parker Center Jail in lieu of $41,000 bail.

De Caro had placed a handwritten bomb threat in front of the teller, whose name was not released, but the teller pretended not to have seen it, police said.

The note said, “I have a bomb. Don’t hit any alarms. I’ll kill us. This is a holdup. Act like nothing is wrong,” police said.

The teller politely excused herself at the window, saying to De Caro, “I’ll be right with you,” Detective Richard Richter said. She then informed the manager that a man was out front with a threatening note, Richter said.

When the woman walked away, De Caro walked out of the building, police said.

The manager was still on the phone with police 10 minutes later when De Caro re-entered the building and took a place in line in front of the tellers’ windows, police said.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, he’s back. What do we do?’ ” said the manager, who asked not to be identified.

The manager said she told the teller, the only one on duty, to process each transaction slowly so that police would have time to arrive. When the man with the note got to the head of the line, the manager opened a second window, she said.

Wearing dark sunglasses and a bulky leather jacket, the man approached the second window and said: “I want to make a withdrawal,” the manager said. He then placed the note in front of her, she said.

The manager said she pulled $560 in cash from the drawer and handed it to the man, who stuffed the bills into his jacket pocket and left through the front doors.

De Caro’s car was parked directly in front of the building. But he never got to it. Police officers, on either side of the building’s entrance, arrested the unarmed De Caro without incident, Richter said.

De Caro may be responsible for two other recent robberies on Ventura Boulevard, Richter said. The first, in which a robber escaped with about $1,000, was at Sanwa Bank at 19858 Ventura Blvd. in Woodland Hills on Jan. 25, Richter said. The second, in which a robber fled with $5,000, was at Security Pacific Bank at 18211 Ventura Blvd in Tarzana on Feb. 2, he said.