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Greetings fellow Calgunners,
I am a former employee of the now-closed B&B Sales gunshop in North Hollywood and have been asked a few times to post in detail my experiences during the 1997 Bank of America robbery in North Hollywood...so here goes. Please note that this is my personal account of what I saw and may conflict with other sources concerning the events of the day.
Named for it's two owners (Bob and Barry Kahn) B&B Sales consisted of two retail stores, one in North Hollywood and one in Westminster. The two buildings also jointly housed a wholesale division of the company called Bumble Bee Wholesale that sold to dealers and law enforcement agencies up and down the West Coast. The North Hollywood store on Oxnard Street was located about two city blocks diagonally from the Bank of America branch where Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu staged their holdup and subsequent shootout.
I was one of two retail managers working at B&B in February of 1997. While the store opened at 11am we usually arrived at 9am to clean and restock the showroom. On the morning of the 28th at approximately 9:30 am I was in the Accounting office actually preparing to go to the Bank of America that was being robbed at the time to get change for our cash registers when our shipping manager called out over the storewide intercom using our code phrase for trouble at the freight door. I grabbed a loaded Remington 870 shotgun and ran downstairs to see the loading gate roll up and two LAPD bicycle cops roll into the store when the door was barely three feet open. I also could hear staccato bursts of fully automatic weapons fire echoing outside.
The two officers were white as ghosts but kept their composure and quickly related to us that the LAPD was engaged in a gun battle with multiple armored gunmen who were using fully automatic rifles. I believe their words were "You've got to help us - we're getting cut to ribbons out there" or something to that effect. Our shipping manager, several of the salesmen, and I were the only people in the store as our owners were offsite at the time. I posted one armed salesman at the front door, another at the freight door, and began asking the officers what they needed from us as the shipping manager called our owner for confirmation on how to best assist the LAPD.
Let me make this next point clear: I did not solely make the call to start handing out firearms. I intended to do so but the guns were not mine to hand out so while several salesmen prepared two Remington Police shotguns for the two officers (the only long guns they had any training with) I was relieved that our owner called back immediately and instructed us to give the LAPD whatever they asked for without hesitation.
The two officers left the store with shotguns slung and several boxes of 12 ga slugs. We knew that the slugs wouldn't penetrate the armor that the officers had described but we figured they would make a hell of a mess of someone's ribs regardless. Within a minute or two, more officers appeared and began requesting AR15 rifles and more shotguns - again, these were the only long guns most of them had any experience with so we began loading stacks of 30 round AR mags and Remington shotguns, passing them out as quickly as the LAPD showed up. A supervisor of some kind arrived and left with three officers, four ARs and a case of Norinco 5.56 FMJ in his trunk.
I do not remember the exact number of firearms loaned out that morning. I've seen reports that we gave handguns to the officers, which I don't recall and doesn't make any sense - the cops already had handguns. My recollection is well over a dozen rifles and almost as many shotguns but I could be wrong. We wrote down the make, model, and serial number of each gun as it left and I believe our shipping manager kept the tally.
Side note: At one point as we were standing on the sales floor loading magazines and watching the live news feed of the robbery, a news team showed a patrol car pull up near the bank. Two officers jumped out and took up barricade positions behind their vehicle. As the camera zoomed in, we could see our price tags, still attached to the ARs the officers held, blowing in the breeze. You could even read "B&B SALES" on them. Talk about advertising!
Without doubt the most interesting thing that happened was an older plainclothes officer walked into the store wearing a dirty flannel shirt that covered a Browning Hi-Power in a shoulder holster. I've only known of one LAPD unit that was ever supposedly authorized to carry such a pistol: The SIS. This guy calmly walked up to me and when I asked him what he needed from us he responded "I need something that will drill these a*****e's body armor, front to back." The only thing I could come up with was a .300 Win Mag bolt action rifle with a Leupold scope that our gunsmith had bore-sighted. He asked for ammunition and I handed him a 20 round box of FMJ. He took one sleeve out (10 rounds), handed the other one to me and said "Thanks, I'll be back in a bit" and walked out.
We all know what happened next. The two gunmen were taken down after a nerve-wracking half hour running gun battle and by the next morning ALL of the firearms we loaned the LAPD had been returned. Lots of people ask if any of them had been fired. I don't think they were but I can't say for sure. I wasn't the only person receiving the loaned guns and the rifles were dirty from factory test firing when we originally received them. We were visited by the North Hollywood watch commander either that afternoon or the next morning (sorry, can't recall) and personally thanked for our assistance. The next few days were a media circus, we received phone calls and letters from police agencies all across the country, and our sales went through the roof.
That's about all I can remember at 1:30am. If I remember anything else of note, I'll add it.
I am a former employee of the now-closed B&B Sales gunshop in North Hollywood and have been asked a few times to post in detail my experiences during the 1997 Bank of America robbery in North Hollywood...so here goes. Please note that this is my personal account of what I saw and may conflict with other sources concerning the events of the day.
Named for it's two owners (Bob and Barry Kahn) B&B Sales consisted of two retail stores, one in North Hollywood and one in Westminster. The two buildings also jointly housed a wholesale division of the company called Bumble Bee Wholesale that sold to dealers and law enforcement agencies up and down the West Coast. The North Hollywood store on Oxnard Street was located about two city blocks diagonally from the Bank of America branch where Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu staged their holdup and subsequent shootout.
I was one of two retail managers working at B&B in February of 1997. While the store opened at 11am we usually arrived at 9am to clean and restock the showroom. On the morning of the 28th at approximately 9:30 am I was in the Accounting office actually preparing to go to the Bank of America that was being robbed at the time to get change for our cash registers when our shipping manager called out over the storewide intercom using our code phrase for trouble at the freight door. I grabbed a loaded Remington 870 shotgun and ran downstairs to see the loading gate roll up and two LAPD bicycle cops roll into the store when the door was barely three feet open. I also could hear staccato bursts of fully automatic weapons fire echoing outside.
The two officers were white as ghosts but kept their composure and quickly related to us that the LAPD was engaged in a gun battle with multiple armored gunmen who were using fully automatic rifles. I believe their words were "You've got to help us - we're getting cut to ribbons out there" or something to that effect. Our shipping manager, several of the salesmen, and I were the only people in the store as our owners were offsite at the time. I posted one armed salesman at the front door, another at the freight door, and began asking the officers what they needed from us as the shipping manager called our owner for confirmation on how to best assist the LAPD.
Let me make this next point clear: I did not solely make the call to start handing out firearms. I intended to do so but the guns were not mine to hand out so while several salesmen prepared two Remington Police shotguns for the two officers (the only long guns they had any training with) I was relieved that our owner called back immediately and instructed us to give the LAPD whatever they asked for without hesitation.
The two officers left the store with shotguns slung and several boxes of 12 ga slugs. We knew that the slugs wouldn't penetrate the armor that the officers had described but we figured they would make a hell of a mess of someone's ribs regardless. Within a minute or two, more officers appeared and began requesting AR15 rifles and more shotguns - again, these were the only long guns most of them had any experience with so we began loading stacks of 30 round AR mags and Remington shotguns, passing them out as quickly as the LAPD showed up. A supervisor of some kind arrived and left with three officers, four ARs and a case of Norinco 5.56 FMJ in his trunk.
I do not remember the exact number of firearms loaned out that morning. I've seen reports that we gave handguns to the officers, which I don't recall and doesn't make any sense - the cops already had handguns. My recollection is well over a dozen rifles and almost as many shotguns but I could be wrong. We wrote down the make, model, and serial number of each gun as it left and I believe our shipping manager kept the tally.
Side note: At one point as we were standing on the sales floor loading magazines and watching the live news feed of the robbery, a news team showed a patrol car pull up near the bank. Two officers jumped out and took up barricade positions behind their vehicle. As the camera zoomed in, we could see our price tags, still attached to the ARs the officers held, blowing in the breeze. You could even read "B&B SALES" on them. Talk about advertising!
Without doubt the most interesting thing that happened was an older plainclothes officer walked into the store wearing a dirty flannel shirt that covered a Browning Hi-Power in a shoulder holster. I've only known of one LAPD unit that was ever supposedly authorized to carry such a pistol: The SIS. This guy calmly walked up to me and when I asked him what he needed from us he responded "I need something that will drill these a*****e's body armor, front to back." The only thing I could come up with was a .300 Win Mag bolt action rifle with a Leupold scope that our gunsmith had bore-sighted. He asked for ammunition and I handed him a 20 round box of FMJ. He took one sleeve out (10 rounds), handed the other one to me and said "Thanks, I'll be back in a bit" and walked out.
We all know what happened next. The two gunmen were taken down after a nerve-wracking half hour running gun battle and by the next morning ALL of the firearms we loaned the LAPD had been returned. Lots of people ask if any of them had been fired. I don't think they were but I can't say for sure. I wasn't the only person receiving the loaned guns and the rifles were dirty from factory test firing when we originally received them. We were visited by the North Hollywood watch commander either that afternoon or the next morning (sorry, can't recall) and personally thanked for our assistance. The next few days were a media circus, we received phone calls and letters from police agencies all across the country, and our sales went through the roof.
That's about all I can remember at 1:30am. If I remember anything else of note, I'll add it.
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