North Hollywood shootout - Misplaced Pages

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The North Hollywood shootout was a shootout between two heavily armed and armoured bank robbers and the LAPD on February 28, 1997.

The Shootout

On February 28, 1997, two bank robbers armed with AK-47s robbed the Bank of America in North Hollywood, Los Angeles,California. After five minutes, three civilians and nine police officers had been hit and a TAC (tactical) alert was issued. Ultimately, 350 officers were called to the scene. The suspects also fired on news helicopters. The suspects fired approximately 1,100 rounds of ammunition in one of the most violent shootouts in U.S. law enforcement history.

Weapons Used in Shootout

LAPD - Berreta 92FS pistols, .357 Magnum revolvers, Remington shotguns

LAPD SWAT - Colt M16A2 assault rifles, Colt XM177E2 carbines

Bank Robbers - 3 AKM assault rifles, 1 G3A4 rifle, 1 M16A1 assault rifle, Beretta 92F pistol

Outcome

After a long running gun battle (which had the police borrow weapons from a local firearms retailer, but weren't deployed as the first members of S.W.A.T. had already arrived on the scene) the suspect Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. had finally ceased fire due to a jamming in his AK-47. Instead of simply clearing the jam, he abandoned it and had reached for his Beretta 92F handgun. Phillips then continued to fire at police officers with the handgun, but police had managed to wound his right hand which caused him to drop his weapon. After picking up his weapon with his left hand, Phillips continued firing and had taken cover behind a parked semi-truck. Phillips decided to move again and continue firing at police officers. Shortly thereafter, Phillips had placed the muzzle end against the bottom of his chin and had apparently shot himself while a police round simultaneously severed his spine. The question remains whether Phillips had committed suicide or if he tried to reload his weapon one-handed when the simultaneous police round through his spine had caused him to accidentally pull the trigger. The other suspect, Emil Dechebal Matasareanu, was wounded critically by S.W.A.T. team members while driving the getaway vehicle. Matasareanu had stopped, was approached by police, and was subdued to the ground and handcuffed. The police had radioed for an ambulance for the wounded suspect, but Matasareanu had succumbed to his fatal wounds by the time the ambulance had reached the scene. In all, twelve police vechicles were heavily damaged, twelve officers and eight civilians were wounded, and two fatalities (the suspects) occured. Police were later criticized for not allowing Matasareanu to receive medical attention; police countered that, stating that the ambulances were following their own policy in hostile situations and refused to enter "the hotzone" on their own accord, as Matasareanu was still considered to be dangerous. There were also reports of a third gunmen somewhere in the area. Authorities had begun searching for the alleged third gunman following the shootout, but no such gunman was found. The police had concluded that there were only two gunmen.

The shooting had similarities to both an actual earlier shootout in Norco, California on May 9, 1980 and a fictional shoot-out in the movie Heat. Authorities believe that Phillips and Matasareanu used Heat as a training film.

Aftermath

The incident highlighted the growing discrepancies between law enforcement and criminal offensive and defensive technologies. Video footage of the incident clearly shows police pistol bullets striking the suspects with little or no effect, largely due to the body armor worn by the suspects. Their body armor was able to stop the .38 caliber and 9mm projectiles fired by the officers' service handguns.

The ineffectiveness of the pistol rounds in penetrating the suspects' body armor led to a trend in the United States towards arming selected police officers with .223 caliber/5.56mm assault rifles such as the M16, providing first responders greater ability to effectively confront and neutralize heavily armed and armored criminals.

Advocates of gun control in the United States cited the incident as evidence of how weak US gun control laws were in preventing military-class weaponry from ending up in the hands of prior felons. Both Phillips and Matasareanu had previously been arrested in 1996 for armed robbery, but legally fought and successfully won for their assault rifles to be returned to them. Opponents of gun lobbyists such as the NRA argue that without adequate gun regulation there is no gun enforcement, leading to easier access by criminals, including former convicts, Phillips and Matasareanu. They further point out that assault weapons, like all goods, move with money; and that without any deterrence against gun distributors, simple economics dictates that guns will be supplied, pound for pound, to those with a demand for them, including those who wish to use them illegally; ultimately giving criminals an advantage over law enforcement in the street arms race.

The LAPD traffic officers were not armed or protected to deal with such criminals. That the police were outgunned and outarmored is clearly evident from the fact that hundreds of police were involved in the shootout against only two gunmen and resulting in 16 wounded officers. The gunmen were firing armor piercing rounds from modified fully automatic assault rifles while being protected by custom reinforced full body armor. The traffic officers' hand guns and shotguns, could not penetrate through the gunmen's armor, while the gunmen's modified assault rifles were wounding officers even when they were taking cover behind cement walls.

Opponents of gun control counter that since the weapons had been obtained illegally, the incident did not indicate that criminal use of registered fully automatic firearms was a problem; to date there has been no recorded commission of a crime other than suicide with a legally registered fully automatic firearm by the legal owner--a few have been used following their theft. They also point out that during the shootout, LAPD traffic officers acquired more powerful weapons from a nearby gun shop. The gun shop owner had given the police officers shotguns and rifles that had the potential to at least break the bones of the gunmen if not penetrate their armor. Though it was the S.W.A.T. team that eventually brought down the final gunmen, had the gun shop not carried these more powerful weapons there could have been more police and civilian casualties due to the inability of the police to effectively defend their position.

Movies

44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out at IMDb
North Hollywood Shootout MVP documentary by James Strauss (see amazon.com for reviews)

A 2005 documentary entitled Shootout! North Hollywood Shootout was also created by the History Channel describing the event in detail with interviews from the involved police officers.

A close recreation of the incident was featured in the opening scenes of the action film S.W.A.T.. Weapons, location, events, TV footage, and dialog from LAPD radio communcations were all closely mimicked.

It has been alleged that the shooters had gained ideas and knowledge about both bank robbery using assault weapons and police tactics from the movie Heat

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