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.
