East L.A. Bank Manager Kidnapped, Tied With ‘Explosives’
Atlantic and Whittier boulevards closed, nearby school ‘locked down.’
By City News Service
Authorities are still searching for suspected bank robbers who targeted the East Los Angeles branch of Bank of America, pictured here, on Wednesday. (EGP photo by Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou)
Local law enforcement and FBI agents were on the trail of two bank robbers who kidnapped a Bank of America manager, held her overnight, then sent her into an East Los Angeles branch Wednesday with what they told her was a bomb and instructions to toss cash out of the door.
The suspects fled in a Kia, possibly white with a partial California license of 6HOR54_, shortly after the roughly 8:30 a.m. robbery at 941 S. Atlantic Blvd., and a sheriff’s deputy took the supposed bomb off the woman, placing it on the curb where a bomb squad robot detonated it about 9:45 a.m.
The kidnapped woman, said to be uninjured but frantic and crying, was being questioned by detectives. She had been abducted from her home Huntington Park, sheriff’s Capt. Mike Parker said.
“She was held against her will until the morning,” he said. “At about 8:30 this morning, she was at the bank. It is unclear at this moment whether she was brought to the bank or drove herself here.”
At least one of the suspects had a gun. Authorities described them only as black men who wore masks.
“She went into the bank, and she told another employee or employees that she had this device attached to her, and that she was demanded by the robbers to (get) the money from the bank and throw it outside.”
Bomb experts also examined the bank manager’s car, as well as the bank building. The area was declared safe about 11 a.m., Parker said.
Early Wednesday afternoon, the area around Atlantic and Whittier boulevards remained closed while investigators processed the crime scene, looking for possible evidence, Parker said. At least one nearby school was temporarily “locked down.”
Parker said the crooks got away with “a decent amount of money,” but he declined to say how much.
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September 6, 2012 Copyright © 2012 Eastern Group Publications, Inc.
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