Four Bank Robbery Suspects Held After Chase, 3-Hour Standoff at High School

Suspected bank robbers led police on a freeway chase from West Covina to South-Central Los Angeles on Wednesday, then one suspect barricaded himself in a high school classroom, prompting authorities to lock down the school and its entire student body for three hours.

The standoff at Locke High ended when 21-year-old Van Rollen of Los Angeles--one of four robbery suspects and the last to be arrested--surrendered to authorities, West Covina police said.

The bizarre incident--which would keep students cooped up inside their classrooms through lunch and a canceled noon-time dance--started with a 10 a.m. robbery of the Wells Fargo bank on West Covina Parkway.

West Covina police said Rollen, 21, Danyale Kyle, 21, and Donald Week, 22, also of Los Angeles, robbed the bank wearing ski masks and what appeared to be rubber gloves and fled in a getaway car driven by Loretta Carter, 20, also of Los Angeles.

The suspects abandoned the getaway car for a second car a block away from the bank, then led police on a chase down the westbound San Bernardino Freeway, got off the freeway and headed south. For reasons not immediately clear to police, they stopped at Locke High at 111th and San Pedro Streets.

The suspects parked their car in the faculty lot, where Kyle, Week and Carter were immediately arrested, police said.

But Rollen, still holding a pillowcase with an undisclosed amount of money from the robbery, managed to run through the front gates of the school onto the campus, telling a teacher he had done something wrong in Pomona and was being sought by authorities, police said. Although police subsequently found no evidence that Rollen was carrying a gun, they remained worried throughout the siege that he was armed.

The morning break bell had just rung and a few straggling students were running back into the school when the suspect slipped in and headed for the library, Locke Principal Annie Webb said.

Webb said she first noticed something was amiss when she heard helicopters hovering above the school.

“I called [LAPD] Southeast [Division] police and they told me about the police chase of a suspected bank robber on San Pedro,” Webb said. She called an alert, asking teachers to lock all classroom doors and “not letting anyone in and anyone out.” Students were told in an announcement on the public address system that a “police matter” was in progress.

In the library, Rollen dropped the pillowcase of cash, then ran into Room 106, an empty classroom, where he barricaded himself for more than three hours, police said.

Authorities used the school’s public address system to try to make one-way contact with the suspect, and were told by a teacher where the suspect was hiding, Sgt. Jack Vail said. Police, led by a search dog, found Rollen and arrested him about 1:15 p.m.

“It was like no big deal,” said Sharita Chaney, 15, after school was let out. “I’m just mad I was kept in for three hours.”

Another student, Don Parkinson, 17, said that most students at Locke were less panicked by the alert and more fascinated by the police activity. “Everybody was at the windows,” Parkinson said, as the brakes of police cars screeched outside and sirens blared.

Principal Webb said she was impressed by the teachers’ and students’ ability to keep calm while cooped up. “Something like this takes precedence over a school dance,” Webb chuckled.