North Hollywood shootout
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 5 minutes, 3 civilians and 9 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 saw the police borrowing guns from a gun shop, one suspect shot himself in the head next to a parked semi-truck with a Beretta 92F after his AKM jammed and the other suspect was finally shot by SWAT team members. The suspects were identified as Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu. 12 police cars were shot to pieces, and 12 officers and 8 civilians were shot. Nevertheless, the only people to die in the entire shootout were the two gunmen. Phillips shot himself with his Beretta handgun, while Matasareanu eventually bled to death from the gunshot wounds he received from the close-quarter battle from the three LAPD SWAT members. Police were later criticized for not allowing Matasareanu to receive medical attention; police countered that wounded civilians and police deserved priority access to medical care, and that Matasareanu was still considered dangerous because of possible booby traps or explosives.
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 police offensive and defensive technologies and the technologies available to criminals. Video footage of the incident clearly shows bullets fired by the police officers impacting the suspects with little to no effect, mostly due to ballistic armor worn by the suspects which was able to stop the .38 caliber and 9mm projectiles fired by the officers' service handguns. The ineffectiveness of the rounds in penetrating the ballistic armor of the suspects lead to a nationwide movement of arming some squad cars and officers with .223cal/5.56mm assault rifles like the M16 assault rifle to allow first responders the ability to effectively confront and neutralize heavily armed and armored subjects.
Some advocates of gun control in the United States cited the incident as evidince that military-class weaponry was too easily accessible and that tighter federal-level restrictions were necessary above and beyond those in the 1994 assault weapons ban and the National Firearms Act. The proliferation of weapons such as the AKMs (AK-47s variants) and G3A4 (derivitive of a common German Army rifle) used by the two gunman, they argued, was the precursor to widespread shootings of a similar nature, using automatic weapons, that the nation's police forces would not be able to stop or blunt. The argument was soon largely discarded when a number of logical and factual flaws were pointed out and presented in counter-arguments:
- While a number of people were wounded, some seriously, only the gunmen were killed.
- The weapons were obtained illegally. New laws were not necessary, as existing ones had been broken when the gunmen obtained the weapons; the National Firearms Act and the 1994 Assault Weapons ban had both been violated.
- 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.
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.
Movies
- 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out at IMDb
- North Hollywood Shootout MVP documentary by James Strauss (see amazon.com for reviews)