Cops, FBI hunt The Buckshot Bandits

We told you yesterday about driving into the crime scene left behind by the "The Buckshot Bandits" on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. If there's any question about the seriousness of the story, one of our readers dispelled the notion with the comment:

"was not funny if you were there...
i was there with my kids not funny at all."

As Michael Mann's bank-robbing John Dillinger tribute, Public Enemies, plays its second weekend in local theatres, police say they responded yesterday to reports of the robberies committed within minutes of each other, first at 12:10 pm at a Citibank in the 22000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, then a half-hour later down the street at a US Bank in the 17000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Encino-- mere yards away from Michael Jackson's family estate, where media had been camped out for more than a week.

Witnesses describe the robbers as two Latino men in their 20s, wearing sunglasses, hats and casual clothes. They threatened customers individually, telling them to get on the floor, robbed at least one and pointed a gun at one person's head.

At the Citibank, one of the crooks showed a device he said was a bomb and threatened to set it off if the tellers did not give them money. They made similar threats but didn't show it off at the US Bank.

The robbers got the cash and took off in a vehicle, managing to escape road blocks set up by police, FBI agents and the California Highway Patrol.



The LAPD bomb squad called to the scene used a robotic device to detonate the alleged bomb at the Citibank branch. Cops won't say if there were any explosives.

Investigators believe some of the same men used fake bombs to rob a US Bank in Sherman Oaks on May 1 and First Bank in the 17000 block of Ventura Boulevard on May 29th. Footage from the First Bank surveillance cameras shows two robbers who fit the description of the men who robbed the Citibank and US Bank yesterday. Surveillance footage from the May 1 robbery shows it was committed by a pair that included a man in his 50s, (in photos above) leading investigators to believe there may be a group at work.

The bomb squad responded to both May robberies and detonated devices, which proved harmless, she said.

Persons with information are asked to contact investigators at 888.226.8443.

Jacko opens for the Buckshot Bandits

Hey, if we were going to set off on a bank robbery spree in Los Angeles this week it probably would have been on Tuesday, when thousands of police were hanging around downtown at the Staples Center, but maybe the crooks who robbed two banks in the Valley today knew better. We ran into the aftermath near the intersection of Topanga Canyon and Ventura Boulevards in Woodland Hills this afternoon, as police had the whole area evacuated and cordoned off because the robbers had left behind a package they'd claimed was a bomb. Turns out it was our encounter with the Buckshot Bandits, named for the long-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns they tote. Cops like to give bank robbers nicknames. It supposedly helps get them caught. Maybe they should call these guys the Buckshot Bombers, seeing they also left fake devices after two bank jobs in May. At today's second heist in Encino, not far from the Jackson family compound, one of them also put a gun to a customer's head.