Police Say 3 Arrests Have Stopped String of Ventura Boulevard Bank Robberies

A string of unusual armed robberies outside banks along Ventura Boulevard--one of which left a bank customer fatally shot--has apparently ended with the recent arrests of three men, Los Angeles police said.

Police said four daylight robberies of customers entering banks along the busy boulevard in Tarzana and Woodland Hills prompted formation of a task force early this month to catch the robbers.

Raul Figueroa of Canoga Park died during a June 30 armed robbery as he refused to give up his money at the Wells Fargo Bank in the 18000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana. Figueroa, 28, was shot twice by a gunman who accosted him outside the bank, police said. When Figueroa fell to the ground and continued to clutch the $400 in cash he was to deposit to cover his rent check, he was shot twice more in the head.

Police determined that the robbery was similar to two that occurred the week before, one at the same Wells Fargo Bank and the other at a Bank of America on Ventura Boulevard near Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

Police declined to say how much money was taken in the robberies but said they were unusual because they occurred during peak business hours in an otherwise relatively low-crime area. The robbers, police said, apparently waited near the banks and watched for customers showing money.

“The customer would be walking in with cash in his hand� when confronted by the robbers, Detective Pat Conmay said.

Special Team

The West Valley Division decided to put together a team of more than a dozen officers to begin watching banks along Ventura Boulevard.

Before the officers could hit the streets, however, on July 1 another customer was robbed at gunpoint while walking toward a Security Pacific National Bank a few blocks away from the Wells Fargo Bank where the slaying occurred.

Later that day, police began their stakeout of banks on the boulevard, watching them through the next

week. The officers arrested a man suspected of committing an unrelated robbery during the surveillance but saw no other robberies of bank customers, police said.

In the meantime, Conmay said, homicide detectives got information from an undisclosed source that led to the arrest of Quinal Johnson, 19, Bernal Thomas, 19, and a 17-year-old juvenile in connection with the slaying of Figueroa.

Thomas and the juvenile were arrested at their homes in South-Central Los Angeles on suspicion of armed robbery. Johnson, who police think shot Figueroa, turned himself in last week and has been charged with murder committed in the course of a robbery, which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Police said the suspects have not been charged with the other cases but noted there have been no more armed robberies of bank customers in the West Valley.

An investigation is continuing into those cases, and the three men’s possible involvement in a number of other street robberies in the West Valley, police said.