Bank Robberies

A man suspected of robbing 10 banks in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties over the past two months was arrested Tuesday after a quick-thinking Oxnard bank manager snagged the license-plate number of a reported getaway car. Robert Kenneth Porter, 34, of Casitas Springs surrendered peacefully to California Highway Patrol and Ventura County sheriff's deputies in front of his home, said FBI Special Agent Gary Auer.

A Casitas Springs man suspected of robbing 11 banks in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties since July was charged Thursday with one count of bank robbery and held in Ventura County Jail on $200,000 bail. Robert Kenneth Porter made his initial appearance Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Willard W. McEwen Jr. in Santa Barbara. Porter was arrested Tuesday, shortly after an Oxnard bank robbery in which a bank manager copied down the license number of the alleged getaway car.

Two Ventura County men were indicted Tuesday in connection with separate bank robbery sprees. Robert Kenneth Porter, 34, of Casitas Springs was indicted by the federal grand jury in Los Angeles on 10 counts of bank robbery. Porter, who is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, had originally been charged in an Aug. 22 bank robbery in Oxnard. He had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

A bank robbery suspect fleeing police with his wife and 3-year-old son in the car was shot and critically wounded Thursday. Investigators said the man, carrying a semiautomatic gun, jumped the counter at a Union Bank of California branch in a supermarket at 17th Street and Grand Avenue about 11 a.m. and ordered tellers to fill a paper bag with money. As he fled, a witness wrote down his license plate number. When officers tried to pull the car over about 1:45 p.m.

A police officer who confronted at least two suspected bank robbers was shot and killed Saturday, leading to a manhunt during which an officer fatally shot one suspect, authorities said. Investigators released few details about the shootings as police searched a wooded area for another suspect in the robbery of a bank in a grocery store. Sgt. Steven Liczbinski, 40, a 12-year veteran who had recently been promoted, was shot with an assault weapon not far from the bank. "It is my understanding that he was either in the car or had just gotten out of the car at the time he was struck," Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said at a news conference outside Temple University Hospital.

Sheriff's deputies arrested a 27-year-old Compton man Thursday on suspicion of robbing a bank in Lancaster. Frederick Dewayne White was taken into custody without incident at a residence in Lancaster. Detectives said he was wanted in the robbery of a Bank of America branch on Tuesday.

Three people were shot to death in a robbery at a bank housed in a trailer along an interstate highway, the FBI said. Investigators were looking for two people in a red sedan in connection with the robbery at Blue Ridge Savings Bank. The victims were identified as bank employee Sylvia Holtzclaw and bank customers James E. Barnes, 62, and his wife, Margaret, 58. Police cordoned off the bank, located in a trailer along Interstate 85 about halfway between Greenville and Spartanburg.