Bank Robbery Suspect, 17, Shot During Pursuit

A masked, armed 17-year-old was shot and wounded by police Saturday after he held up a bank in a strip mall bustling with holiday shoppers, officials said.

Police said the boy might be responsible for several other bank robberies near the California Federal Bank branch in the 17900 block of Magnolia Street that he allegedly robbed Saturday afternoon.

The suspect, who was not identified because of his age, was shot twice by officers in a parking lot behind the bank, where police said he allegedly threatened to shoot employees and customers and took a large amount of cash from a vault.

Lt. Bob Mosley said the suspect was shot after he ignored orders to stop and aimed his weapon, a chrome pellet gun that is a replica of a .45-caliber handgun, at the officers. The suspect was reported in serious but stable condition Saturday night at UCI Medical Center.

The incident began shortly before 1 p.m. when employees inside the bank saw a male, wearing a mask and brandishing a weapon, approach the door. Mosley said the bank manager quickly instructed one employee to call the police and others to lock the doors. But after the bandit demanded he be let in and threatened to shoot employees and customers, the manager unlocked the door, police said.

The suspect ordered everyone to lie on the floor, threatening to kill them if they did not cooperate, and told the manager to open the vault. A significant sum was taken but later recovered.

Officers responding to the 911 call saw a suspect in a parking lot behind the bank and yelled to him to stop. He pointed his weapon at the officers, both of whom fired, striking him in the chest and shoulder, Mosley said.

The suspect in Saturday’s robbery resembles the one whose photograph was taken by security cameras during three bank robberies in the last three months in the same area, Mosley said. He would not elaborate beyond saying the FBI is investigating whether the boy might be linked to the incidents.

Hours later, evidence of the shooting remained in the parking lot, as the FBI and police from several cities converged on the scene. A bloodied white shirt and baseball cap apparently belonging to the suspect lay on the rain-soaked lot, along with two bags and a gun.

Carlos Townsend, 23, of Fountain Valley said he had been about to walk into the bank to get some Christmas cash when he saw patrons inside lying on the floor.

As a friend called police from a pay phone, Townsend said, he saw a man in a hood “nonchalantly walking” from the bank carrying a gun, and a police officer running toward him with his gun drawn too.

“I heard [the officer] saying ‘Stop!’ ” said Townsend’s friend, David Franklin, also 23, of Fountain Valley. The two heard three shots fired, then ran into a neighboring drug store, they said.

Another witness said he was waiting inside the bank before heading to a holiday show at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa when someone “yelled for us all to lie down.”

“He sounded very determined,” said the witness, who asked that only his first name, Eddie, be used. He said the man cursed, grabbed a male bank employee and headed into the bank’s vault. “The next thing I heard was him saying, ‘OK, where are the $100 bills?’ ”

Several hours later, Aaron Hardin stood outside the bank, waiting for his brother, Jeff, 18, who works there as a teller. Minutes before the robbery, Hardin was inside, he said, videotaping his brother as part of a gift for their grandmother.

Hardin, 21, of Fountain Valley was relieved to hear his brother was fine.

“That’s the one thing he’s been so afraid of,” Hardin said.