Tellers at a San Bernardino bank branch looked up one day last fall to see three men--two dressed in camouflage and one in a business suit--trying to push through the glass-enclosed vestibule at the front of the bank. At the moment the men opened the first door the metal detector alarm buzzed and the bullet-resistant interior door automatically locked shut.
Defeated by one of the region's newest security innovations, the puzzled trio turned around and walked away.
After watching the security tape, investigators determined that all three men were wearing body armor--a factor reminiscent of the notorious 1997 North Hollywood bank shootout--and at least one was armed with a rifle.
"I looked at the clock about five minutes later and thought: 'By all rights we should be going through hell right now--and we're not,' " recalled Cheryl D. Angello, a branch manager for the Business Bank of California's East Highland Avenue office.
Through its use of cutting-edge security technology, Business Bank of California has contributed to the most dramatic drop in Southern Californian bank robberies in two decades. Advances in bank security, increased cooperation between industry and law enforcement officials and stiffer federal sentencing guidelines have put a crimp on robberies, security experts say.
According to recent FBI statistics, there were 749 bank robberies last year in the central federal district, which includes seven Southern California counties. That total was down 33% from 1996 and 250% from the region's high of 2,641 robberies in 1992.
In 1996, 183 banks were robbed in Orange County, ahead of the entire state of New Jersey, which had 110.
Of the 144 bank robberies in Orange County last year, only 26 incidents were takeovers. This year 64 bank robberies have been committed in Orange County, 11 of which were takeovers.
This regional trend reflects national figures, which also show a downward turn--from 8,241 robberies in 1996 to 7,850 last year. Bank robberies in Los Angeles, excluding the San Fernando Valley, were down 60%. They were down 51% in both the Valley and Ventura County. Orange County has seen a 21% decline.
But with 3,500 bank branches, 17 million people and innumerable freeways and surface streets serving as getaway routes, Southern California still has more bank robberies than any other region. The decline has also been marked, however, by a substantial increase in the number of takeover robberies since 1994. "That's the most disconcerting statistic with these bank robberies," said one federal agent.
