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The Harrowing Story of the North Hollywood Shootout · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
0:14
Speaker 2: and there's Jerry, and we're just well, Jerry's not here. Actually,
0:19
Speaker 2: now I mentioned it. That was just fsoph habit, wasn't it?
0:21
Speaker 1: The ghost of Jerry. She's not she's still with us.
0:25
Speaker 2: She's driving the getaway car.
0:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's not that kind of ghost.
0:29
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no no, she's the kind of
0:31
Speaker 2: ghost that drives a getaway car.
0:33
Speaker 1: Right.
0:34
Speaker 2: So I mentioned that though, Chuck, because it's apropos of
0:38
Speaker 2: the heist episode we're about to talk about, which I
0:41
Speaker 2: guess this would qualify as a heist.
0:43
Speaker 1: Right, Oh, I mean heck yeah.
0:47
Speaker 2: Well usually to me, heists are a little more intricate
0:51
Speaker 2: most of the time successful. This was a little more
0:56
Speaker 2: brute firepower than any other heist or most other heists,
1:02
Speaker 2: So that's why it kind of disqualifies it in my opinion.
1:05
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's my essay on heists.
1:08
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the definition of heist is.
1:10
Speaker 2: I just gave it to you.
1:12
Speaker 1: Apparently a robbery, so yeah, sure.
1:14
Speaker 2: I mean, of course it's a robbery. But and this
1:17
Speaker 2: qualifies as a robbery. It's just it's its own unique thing,
1:21
Speaker 2: for sure, big time. And you know, as you're reading this,
1:24
Speaker 2: it's so theatrical, it's so just totally off the chain
1:29
Speaker 2: nuts that this actually happened in real life. It's you
1:32
Speaker 2: have to remind yourself from time to time like these
1:34
Speaker 2: are like really really bad guys and what they were
1:36
Speaker 2: doing was beyond reprehensible. It's just we're so trained to
1:41
Speaker 2: get sucked into that kind of like action in the
1:45
Speaker 2: movies that when it happens in real life you have
1:47
Speaker 2: to like kind of turn off that entertainment part of
1:50
Speaker 2: it and bring yourself back to reality. Sometimes, at least
1:52
Speaker 2: I did. I had trouble doing it during research a
1:55
Speaker 2: few times, No.
1:56
Speaker 1: For sure.
1:57
Speaker 3: And we're talking about the North Hollywood shootout is what
2:02
Speaker 3: it's known a lot as the Battle of North Hollywood sometimes.
2:07
Speaker 3: And this is on February twenty eighth and nineteen ninety seven,
2:09
Speaker 3: when two dudes armed to the hilt with assault rifles
2:16
Speaker 3: like anything you can think of. And this is, as
2:18
Speaker 3: we'll see a time when and this is kind of
2:20
Speaker 3: one of the big sort of I guess, interesting and
2:24
Speaker 3: scary parts about this. This is when cops like people
2:28
Speaker 3: could be more out armed than the police that are
2:32
Speaker 3: trying to stop them, right, And that's what happened the
2:36
Speaker 3: day that they engaged, when North Hollywood became a war
2:40
Speaker 3: zoned for a little while.
2:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as a matter of fact, this episode, this
2:43
Speaker 2: event led directly to the militarization of police forces, as
2:48
Speaker 2: we see, these two guys basically pressed that issue because, yeah,
2:52
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles Police Department was outgunned, out armed, and
3:00
Speaker 2: but definitely not outnumbered. They outnumbered the robbers, but they
3:04
Speaker 2: were still getting pinned down and they were having no
3:06
Speaker 2: luck with anything. Well, I don't want to give too
3:09
Speaker 2: much away. Let's just start at the beginning, because we're
3:11
Speaker 2: talking about two dudes. A twenty six year old this
3:14
Speaker 2: is back in ninety seven, named Larry Eugene Phillips Junior,
3:18
Speaker 2: and there was a thirty year old who he was
3:20
Speaker 2: friends with named Emil Mattiseranu. And even though Emil was older,
3:26
Speaker 2: Larry was the one who called the shots. He was
3:29
Speaker 2: roundly described by family members as manipulative, controlling, and he
3:35
Speaker 2: had Emil under his thumb. A meal was described by
3:38
Speaker 2: his family members later as a follower. So even though
3:41
Speaker 2: he was a little older. He listened to what Emil
3:43
Speaker 2: told him to do, not just in their partnership as
3:47
Speaker 2: like criminals, but in life too. I read somewhere that
3:50
Speaker 2: Emil got married because Larry told him he should and
3:54
Speaker 2: that he shouldn't marry an American girl. So Emil went
3:57
Speaker 2: to Romania and got himself a Romanian bribe because he
3:59
Speaker 2: was a remain immigrant. That level of control is apparently
4:03
Speaker 2: what they were engaged in.
4:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally previous to their meeting they met each other,
4:09
Speaker 3: they were bodybuilders, not professionally but just bodybuilding guys at
4:13
Speaker 3: Gold's Gym and Venice Beach in nineteen eighty nine. And
4:17
Speaker 3: just prior to this is when Phillips started. His life
4:22
Speaker 3: of crime. Started kind of small, I guess, like most criminals,
4:26
Speaker 3: just a heist of four hundred dollars from a seers
4:30
Speaker 3: in southern California, and then graduated to burglary, real estate
4:36
Speaker 3: fraud stuff like that. Apparently was sort of enamored of
4:41
Speaker 3: Scarface and ultimately the movie Heat. So if this shootout
4:46
Speaker 3: sounds familiar, it sounds a lot like the one from Heat,
4:49
Speaker 3: it's because they seem to have been inspired by that
4:51
Speaker 3: movie for sure.
4:53
Speaker 1: But love not only just the.
4:55
Speaker 3: Gangsters and movies, but also the white collar criminals. He
4:58
Speaker 3: would apparently like park in front of rich people's houses
5:02
Speaker 3: and just sort of fantasize about that life and wanted
5:06
Speaker 3: money like he you know, in the end, this whole
5:09
Speaker 3: thing was about money and like the thrill of it
5:12
Speaker 3: all largely because of Phillips.
5:15
Speaker 2: Right for sure, and Phillips was he kind of had
5:18
Speaker 2: the odds stacked against him in succeeding in a normal
5:23
Speaker 2: nine to five life because of the family he was
5:26
Speaker 2: born into. His father, Larry Ejeen Phillips Senior, who would
5:30
Speaker 2: later speak about his son in glowing terms after this.
5:34
Speaker 2: He was actually an escape beef from a prison in
5:38
Speaker 2: Colorado when Larry Junior was born, so Larry Junior was
5:42
Speaker 2: born into an alias. His last name was False Orful.
5:46
Speaker 2: That's how he was born, and on his sixth birthday,
5:50
Speaker 2: apparently the FBI came in with guns drawn to capture
5:53
Speaker 2: his dad, and that helped set up what was referred
5:57
Speaker 2: to as basically a lifelong hatred of the police and
6:01
Speaker 2: by extension, the kind of normal society the police were
6:06
Speaker 2: charged with defending.
6:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:09
Speaker 3: As Par Mattisrano, he was a Romanian immigrant came into
6:13
Speaker 3: the country when he was about eleven in nineteen seventy seven,
6:17
Speaker 3: was naturalized in eighty eight. And his mom, we'll talk
6:21
Speaker 3: about her a little bit. Her name was Valerie Nicolescue.
6:25
Speaker 2: I think that definitely gets it across sure Nicolescue.
6:29
Speaker 3: She says that he was bullied when he was a kid.
6:32
Speaker 3: He became a computer and video game nerd. He ended
6:36
Speaker 3: up going to Devrye Institute of Technology when he was
6:39
Speaker 3: nineteen and I'm sorry he got his degree when he
6:42
Speaker 3: was nineteen. But his neighbors also said things like this
6:46
Speaker 3: guy was bad news. He threatened one of the neighbors
6:49
Speaker 3: with a chainsaw because their dog came on his property.
6:53
Speaker 3: And their family also had another sort of disturbing secret, right.
6:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had a family business, a Meal and his mom, Valerie,
7:03
Speaker 2: had like basically a residential care center out of their
7:08
Speaker 2: home for people with disabilities, usually cognitive disabilities or mental
7:14
Speaker 2: health issues. And they were set up as a legitimate
7:19
Speaker 2: care institute. No, that's not the word, I guess a
7:22
Speaker 2: care home. Yeah. The problem is is they were not
7:27
Speaker 2: a good care home by pretty much any standard. They
7:30
Speaker 2: were caught multiple times doing or they were accused multiple
7:34
Speaker 2: times of mistreating the people. One of their residents was
7:39
Speaker 2: left in the hospital just kind of abandoned, ditched there.
7:43
Speaker 2: There was supposedly some allegations that a Meal had been
7:46
Speaker 2: abusive toward at least one of the patients there, and
7:51
Speaker 2: he was not allowed to come back into the house anymore,
7:54
Speaker 2: which is a problem because this is the family house.
7:56
Speaker 2: And eventually they got shut down for fire codes, and
8:00
Speaker 2: later on we'll see it even got worse after the
8:05
Speaker 2: heist happened and all the news came out and the
8:07
Speaker 2: police and the press started looking into that family and
8:10
Speaker 2: their family business. Just suffice to say, like, his mom
8:13
Speaker 2: doesn't appear to have been a very good person herself,
8:17
Speaker 2: just based on the allegations of how she treated the
8:20
Speaker 2: people who were under her care.
8:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty just.
8:24
Speaker 3: I mean, this is one of the more disturbing parts
8:26
Speaker 3: of this whole story actually, and it's kind of a sidebar,
8:29
Speaker 3: which is after the shootout, they searched her like a
8:34
Speaker 3: commercial building that she owned in Pasadena and found a
8:37
Speaker 3: forty four year old mentally disabled woman locked in a
8:41
Speaker 3: room with no windows, with no food or water. And
8:44
Speaker 3: then later it turns out that she was charged for
8:48
Speaker 3: that initially.
8:49
Speaker 1: Which was.
8:50
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess just sort of like a neglect charge.
8:54
Speaker 3: She was sentenced to ten months. But then later in
8:57
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, I found an article in the
8:59
Speaker 3: La Times where because I was like, why would she
9:02
Speaker 3: do this? It was a social security fraud. She was
9:05
Speaker 3: collecting checks in her name and her and this other woman.
9:08
Speaker 3: Later on she you know, it was basically welfare and
9:13
Speaker 3: social security fraud. So she got pinched for that in
9:15
Speaker 3: two thousand and two.
9:17
Speaker 2: And if you read kind of some of the contemporary
9:19
Speaker 2: articles from nineteen ninety seven right after the heist, she's
9:23
Speaker 2: kind of portrayed by the press as like the thing
9:27
Speaker 2: she says about herself or her background, the press don't
9:30
Speaker 2: really take on face value. Yeah, Like she's she said
9:35
Speaker 2: that she was an opera singer from the state opera
9:38
Speaker 2: in Romania who defected in nineteen seventy seven, And they
9:42
Speaker 2: use the words like claim And when somebody's described as
9:46
Speaker 2: claiming something about their own personal history, that's a signal
9:50
Speaker 2: from the press that this is probably not a trustworthy person.
9:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely.
9:56
Speaker 3: She would also say after this whole shootout went down
9:59
Speaker 3: with her son that she was like he was depressed,
10:02
Speaker 3: his wife had left him, and taken his kid, and
10:07
Speaker 3: I basically think this was a suicide mission for him.
10:10
Speaker 3: So whether or not that was true, who knows. That's
10:12
Speaker 3: what she claimed, right.
10:13
Speaker 2: So these are the guys who found each other in
10:17
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine at Gold's gym and became really good friends.
10:20
Speaker 2: And one of the things, in addition to bodybuilding that
10:23
Speaker 2: they had in common was a real pronounced love of guns,
10:29
Speaker 2: and not just any guns, high power to assault rifles
10:33
Speaker 2: in particular. And apparently Larry Phillips had a line somewhere
10:40
Speaker 2: on steel cased ammunition. He could get it from Russia,
10:45
Speaker 2: highly illegal, but apparently people weren't paying attention, and I
10:49
Speaker 2: saw there was this British National Geographic little hour long
10:53
Speaker 2: documentary on this called Situation Critical, which reminded me of
10:57
Speaker 2: that Seinfeld movie Prognosis Negative totally. But they said that
11:03
Speaker 2: he managed to import rounds of this really illegal, like
11:08
Speaker 2: incredibly powerful steel lined ammunition by the thousands of rounds.
11:15
Speaker 2: So not only did they have really high powered assault rifles,
11:18
Speaker 2: they had immeasurably higher powered shells to put in those
11:23
Speaker 2: assault rifles, which made them extremely dangerous people.
11:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:28
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And as we'll see, and maybe we should take
11:31
Speaker 3: a break here. These two guys were doing a lot
11:34
Speaker 3: of really dangerous criming before that ninety seven shootout.
11:39
Speaker 4: Let's take that break, all right.
12:11
Speaker 3: All right, so before we broke, I hinted around that
12:14
Speaker 3: these guys were criming around previous to the nineteen ninety
12:18
Speaker 3: seven shootout where everything ended, and that is very much true.
12:23
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, they.
12:25
Speaker 3: Were pulled over in a rental car in Glendale and
12:28
Speaker 3: cop said, all right, well, let me take a look
12:29
Speaker 3: in the trunk, and they went, oh, you've got two
12:33
Speaker 3: nine millimeter handguns, two forty five hand guns, two coalition acoffs,
12:39
Speaker 3: six smoke grenades, two homemade bombs, three machine guns, two
12:42
Speaker 3: bulletproof vests, one gas mask, six holsters, wigs, ski masks,
12:47
Speaker 3: two police radio scanners, a stopwatch, and close to three
12:50
Speaker 3: thousand rounds of AMMO. And they said, we're just going
12:54
Speaker 3: to the shooting range, man. And you know, sometimes we
12:58
Speaker 3: like to wear wigs or ski masks, or listen to
13:03
Speaker 3: what the cops are doing, or time each other.
13:05
Speaker 2: Right, we're big fans of the police.
13:08
Speaker 3: Obviously that all is, you know, to an outsider obvious bs.
13:14
Speaker 3: But shockingly, the DA said, you know, we don't have
13:18
Speaker 3: enough evidence to convict them of conspiracy to commit robbery,
13:23
Speaker 3: and they pled down to a misdemeanor weapons charge in
13:26
Speaker 3: about four months in county jail.
13:29
Speaker 2: Each It gets even worse than that. That was nineteen ninety.
13:33
Speaker 1: Three, Okay.
13:35
Speaker 2: They were not only led off with basically a slap
13:38
Speaker 2: on the wrist. What they had in their trunk was
13:40
Speaker 2: described by other people later on as a bank robbery kit.
13:45
Speaker 2: That's everything you needed to rob a bank right there,
13:48
Speaker 2: and it was so painfully obvious that's what that was.
13:51
Speaker 2: That but they still was a stick up note right, No,
13:54
Speaker 2: there wasn't anything like that. They hadn't gotten to that point.
13:57
Speaker 2: But the craziest part of this whole thing crazier that
14:00
Speaker 2: they only got four months for these weapons. The DA
14:05
Speaker 2: and the judge agreed to give them their weapons back
14:09
Speaker 2: after they got out of jail, so they were re armed,
14:12
Speaker 2: ostensibly so that they could sell the weapons to pay
14:15
Speaker 2: for their legal costs, but no one followed up to
14:18
Speaker 2: make sure they did sell the weapons. They just gave
14:20
Speaker 2: them back their assault rifles and their handguns and probably
14:25
Speaker 2: their ski masks, everything they needed to go rob banks.
14:28
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they did with that stuff, and.
14:30
Speaker 1: This was Los Angeles. Yeah, for goodness sakes, I know,
14:33
Speaker 1: it's crazy.
14:35
Speaker 3: So later on, this was after the you know, the
14:39
Speaker 3: final shootout that we're leading up to, But later on
14:42
Speaker 3: there was obviously all kinds of investigations and stuff, and
14:45
Speaker 3: they learned that these two guys were, in fact what
14:49
Speaker 3: were known as the High Incident bandits, these two dudes
14:52
Speaker 3: that robbed well, it was technically it was two incidences,
14:59
Speaker 3: but banks, because they hit two banks at once. In
15:02
Speaker 3: ninety five, they robbed a well, not a bank, but
15:05
Speaker 3: they robbed a Brinks truck in front of a Bank
15:07
Speaker 3: of America in the valley and they killed a guy.
15:11
Speaker 1: They killed the driver. They opened up fire on these dudes.
15:14
Speaker 2: Without warning, without it put your hands that they just
15:16
Speaker 2: came out of nowhere and just started firing on them.
15:19
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, which will you know, we'll see as an
15:21
Speaker 3: obvious precedent. And then in nineteen ninety six, they robbed
15:25
Speaker 3: two Bank of Americas, one of which was the one
15:28
Speaker 3: that they had previously robbed the armored car in front
15:31
Speaker 3: of and killed that guy. And you know, it was
15:33
Speaker 3: the same type of deal. They had these automatic rifles.
15:36
Speaker 3: They were, you know, screaming that they're going to kill you.
15:39
Speaker 3: They had body armor, ski masks, sunglasses. They took their
15:42
Speaker 3: time as far as bank robberies go, by being in
15:45
Speaker 3: these banks for six minutes and eight minutes very long,
15:48
Speaker 3: which is that's a long time for a bank robbery.
15:51
Speaker 1: I tried to get out of there in less than three.
15:53
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's you know, that's what everybody does, that's
15:55
Speaker 2: our goal.
15:56
Speaker 3: But they made off. I mean, these guys had a
15:59
Speaker 3: lot of money. They made off with between one point
16:02
Speaker 3: three and one point seven million bucks combined from this
16:05
Speaker 3: these two heists.
16:07
Speaker 2: Let alone whatever they got from the Brinks robbery.
16:10
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely. And they were you know, they were
16:12
Speaker 3: well known. They were the high incidence bandits. The FBI
16:15
Speaker 3: was you know, actively tracking them and also had a
16:18
Speaker 3: theory that they're not alone. They're part of like a
16:21
Speaker 3: larger crime ring or terror string that's funding them.
16:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like that's not only funding them with arms,
16:27
Speaker 2: but the bank robberies are meant to fund some sort
16:30
Speaker 2: of like right wing paramilitary group or terrorist organization or something.
16:35
Speaker 2: That was the point. That was the premise they were
16:37
Speaker 2: going on because these guys were so incredibly well armed
16:40
Speaker 2: and just for context too, one point seven million dollars
16:46
Speaker 2: for two bank robberies is a eye popping amount of money.
16:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's up.
16:51
Speaker 2: There in like the top probably fifty bank robberies in
16:55
Speaker 2: United States history. Like, those are really big hauls. I
16:58
Speaker 2: saw at the time in nineteen ninety one, the average
17:02
Speaker 2: bank robbery in the United States yielded the robbers about
17:05
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars robbing a bank. The takes were usually
17:10
Speaker 2: so paltry that it wasn't worth the bank's money to
17:15
Speaker 2: invest in other protections like screens that go up really
17:18
Speaker 2: quick between the tellers and the bank robbers. It wasn't
17:21
Speaker 2: worth them installing those in banks because the robbers rarely
17:25
Speaker 2: got away with more than a few thousand dollars. So
17:27
Speaker 2: that was a huge, huge score for almost two million
17:31
Speaker 2: dollars between just two bank robberies for these guys.
17:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't think murder usually occurs at those
17:37
Speaker 3: bank robberies too, Supposedly.
17:40
Speaker 2: I can't remember the number. I think it was like
17:42
Speaker 2: sixteen people died in bank robberies over like I think
17:46
Speaker 2: eighty five to ninety five or something like that, and
17:49
Speaker 2: twelve of them were the bank robber. It was a
17:52
Speaker 2: statistic somewhat like that. So yeah, yeah, and I think
17:55
Speaker 2: eighty five percent of bank robberies get caught. It's a
17:57
Speaker 2: really high risk, usually low reward, yeah crime, but if
18:03
Speaker 2: you do it like these guys did, armed to the teeth.
18:06
Speaker 2: And the other reason that their yields were so big,
18:08
Speaker 2: they scouted out the banks and they knew when the
18:12
Speaker 2: bank was going to get some big delivery of cash.
18:15
Speaker 2: Usually it was a payday or something like that. That's
18:18
Speaker 2: why their robberies paid off so well. They had done
18:21
Speaker 2: their homework ahead of time.
18:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's how they do it in the movies.
18:24
Speaker 3: And apparently these guys were inspired by movies.
18:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess everybody else in real life doesn't do
18:29
Speaker 2: it like the movies.
18:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they were, you know, they were living kind
18:34
Speaker 3: of high on the hog for a little while. They
18:35
Speaker 3: had a lot of money. Phillips himself, he was the
18:38
Speaker 3: one that really sort of idolized, you know, being wealthy
18:42
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. He like bought fancy cars, he
18:45
Speaker 3: bought rolexes. I think mattisonana rented a big house for
18:49
Speaker 3: his family. So, you know, I think looking at the timeline,
18:53
Speaker 3: one was in June of ninety five, one was almost
18:56
Speaker 3: a year later in ninety six, so, and then this
19:00
Speaker 3: final one was in February ninety seven. They weren't, you know,
19:04
Speaker 3: they weren't doing this. It's hard to say they were
19:06
Speaker 3: being smart about it because they were so brazen. But
19:09
Speaker 3: it seems like they were doing this as like, all right, well,
19:11
Speaker 3: here's our annual salary and then we'll go out and
19:13
Speaker 3: do it again in about a year.
19:15
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, no, they were. It was like their new
19:18
Speaker 2: job and their new hobby and their new life, I
19:20
Speaker 2: guess from what I understand. Right. So, on the day
19:25
Speaker 2: of the robbery, their third heist, February twenty, nineteen ninety seven,
19:28
Speaker 2: a Friday, and since it's the end of the month,
19:31
Speaker 2: a payday, they had targeted a Bank of America. It
19:34
Speaker 2: wasn't one they had hit before, but for some.
19:36
Speaker 1: Reason they did Bank of America.
19:38
Speaker 2: They really and I kind of get why, but a
19:42
Speaker 2: being a former Bank of America account holder myself, But
19:47
Speaker 2: they they hit one in North Hollywood. It was on
19:50
Speaker 2: Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Are you familiar with this area? Oh
19:53
Speaker 2: of course, Okay, so you knew were you in la
19:56
Speaker 2: at the time? No?
19:58
Speaker 1: I didn't.
19:58
Speaker 3: Oh wow, this is kind of right before that though
20:00
Speaker 3: I didn't move to LA until two thousand, okay, yeah,
20:05
Speaker 3: and North Hollywood just for references, you know, Hollywood, Central Hollywood,
20:09
Speaker 3: kind of right in the middle of sort of central LA.
20:12
Speaker 3: And then just over the mountains as you go into
20:15
Speaker 3: the valley, that's where North Hollywood is.
20:17
Speaker 2: Right And that's where Hank, the Cheshneian gangster in the
20:21
Speaker 2: HBO show Berry is from. That's why they call him
20:25
Speaker 2: NoHo Hank.
20:26
Speaker 1: I need to do, Barry you do.
20:29
Speaker 2: It's one of those shows that gets insanely off the
20:34
Speaker 2: rails and yet they still manage to make it work.
20:36
Speaker 2: It's really good.
20:38
Speaker 1: You know.
20:38
Speaker 3: I watched a little bit of it years ago when
20:40
Speaker 3: it first started and just got distracted and never got
20:44
Speaker 3: back around to it. But I'd love everyone in that show.
20:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you should. You should give you another shot, all.
20:51
Speaker 1: Right, I'll bury up soon.
20:52
Speaker 2: It's weird though, it's it's deceptively gritty. It's a comedy
20:59
Speaker 2: through it, and it's just bizarre and all that. But
21:02
Speaker 2: there's if you really kind of get into the violence,
21:06
Speaker 2: the meat of it, it's it's pretty hardcore. It's a
21:09
Speaker 2: crazy show. It's hard to pin down, but it's worth
21:11
Speaker 2: the seeing.
21:12
Speaker 1: All right, I'll follow up.
21:13
Speaker 2: So Friday, February twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven, Larry Phillips
21:18
Speaker 2: and a Meal MADISERANU walk into a bank of America
21:23
Speaker 2: and they are covered head to toe and tactical gear
21:27
Speaker 2: ski masks. It turns out Larry Phillips is covered from
21:32
Speaker 2: neck to ankle in body armor. Yeah, that he helped.
21:37
Speaker 2: He apparently so did it himself and it was really effective.
21:41
Speaker 2: A Meal MATASERANUH has a trauma plate basically a like
21:45
Speaker 2: a bulletproof plate covering his chest and his vital organs.
21:50
Speaker 2: And they walk in and apparently the first thing they
21:53
Speaker 2: did was started firing into the air from their AK
21:56
Speaker 2: forty sevens. And you would think that that would capture
22:00
Speaker 2: the attention of the police, but that's a moot point
22:03
Speaker 2: because the police watched them walk into the bank from
22:06
Speaker 2: the first moment this started.
22:08
Speaker 3: Boy, I mean, you can do all the planning in
22:11
Speaker 3: the world as a bank robber, but you can never
22:15
Speaker 3: count or discount bad luck for them good luck for
22:19
Speaker 3: everyone else. Sure, but literally there was a police cruiser
22:24
Speaker 3: that were like sitting there and watched two guys walk
22:28
Speaker 3: into this bank armed like this, And I'm sure they
22:30
Speaker 3: were like what the boo and immediately called this is
22:35
Speaker 3: at nine seventeen, and they immediately called for backup obviously,
22:39
Speaker 3: and I think once they saw and heard the shots
22:42
Speaker 3: and everything, they all immediately knew that these were the
22:45
Speaker 3: high incident bandits.
22:46
Speaker 2: Yes, and for those fans of Snoop Dogg and Doctor
22:49
Speaker 2: Dre and Ice Cube and NWA, you're well aware that
22:52
Speaker 2: what the police called in was a two to eleven
22:54
Speaker 2: an armed robbery in progress.
22:59
Speaker 1: That's good.
23:00
Speaker 2: So one of the things, a little detail that kind
23:03
Speaker 2: of emerged later on, apparently Larry Phillips and Emal were
23:08
Speaker 2: not drug users whatsoever in any way, shape or form,
23:11
Speaker 2: but apparently they had taken phena barbital just before the
23:14
Speaker 2: bank robbery to basically calm their nerves. They were the
23:18
Speaker 2: kind of bank robbers that you see in the movies,
23:20
Speaker 2: but they don't actually exist in real life. These guys
23:23
Speaker 2: existed in real life. They would knock down old ladies
23:26
Speaker 2: and put guns in their faces. They would tell moms
23:29
Speaker 2: that if they didn't shut their kids up, they were
23:31
Speaker 2: going to kill their kids. They fired wildly into the air,
23:34
Speaker 2: they fired wildly into the bank. They just shot everything
23:38
Speaker 2: up everywhere they were really abusive. They were really tough,
23:41
Speaker 2: they were really scary, and they were also really on
23:46
Speaker 2: point as far as knowing where the money is, knowing
23:50
Speaker 2: who would have access to the money, and just making
23:52
Speaker 2: this whole thing work. They had also figured out that
23:55
Speaker 2: they had about eight minutes before the average response time.
23:58
Speaker 2: They hadn't noticed the cops watching them walk in, and
24:00
Speaker 2: so they had timer stopwatches on during this whole eight
24:04
Speaker 2: minute robbery.
24:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is what they had in the trunk when
24:08
Speaker 3: the cops pulled them over four years earlier.
24:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, the stop watch.
24:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, I mean they had this thing planned out,
24:14
Speaker 3: but they also didn't know certain things, like they asked
24:18
Speaker 3: the bank manager to open up the ATMs, and he's like,
24:22
Speaker 3: I can't open the ATMs, Like I literally can't do that.
24:25
Speaker 3: So he tried to shoot them open, which did nothing
24:29
Speaker 3: to get into the atm, but of course it you know,
24:31
Speaker 3: bullets Rickachet everywhere and injured the bank manager. They also,
24:36
Speaker 3: you know, would shoot I think one of them, Phillips,
24:39
Speaker 3: wasn't it, who literally shot into a safe and like
24:44
Speaker 3: shot up a lot of the money that they could
24:46
Speaker 3: have gotten, Yeah, ruining that.
24:47
Speaker 2: Out of anger. They learned that the Prinks truck that
24:51
Speaker 2: was supposed to be delivering hundreds and hundreds about three
24:53
Speaker 2: quarters of a million dollars by their estimate, was running
24:57
Speaker 2: late or had been rescheduled to throw off bank robberies,
25:00
Speaker 2: and out of anger, Emil just shot into a safe
25:03
Speaker 2: and and basically just ruined a bunch of cash that
25:06
Speaker 2: they could have taken.
25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was also a cell phone on the scene,
25:10
Speaker 3: which is not the most common thing in nineteen ninety seven,
25:13
Speaker 3: for sure, but it was la and they locked a
25:17
Speaker 3: bunch of the they were about, you know, thirty bystanders
25:21
Speaker 3: or you know, just people doing bank business. They separated
25:24
Speaker 3: them out from the tellers and put them in a
25:28
Speaker 3: vault and shut the door, and one of the I
25:31
Speaker 3: believe one of the women inside had a cell phone,
25:33
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure how much it help, but she
25:35
Speaker 3: was at least able to be in touch with the cops,
25:39
Speaker 3: sort of describing what she was hearing while all this
25:41
Speaker 3: is going on.
25:42
Speaker 2: Right, this is at a time before people knew what
25:45
Speaker 2: lol meant, and run of the cops she was texting
25:48
Speaker 2: with was like, LOL meaning lots of love, but she
25:52
Speaker 2: didn't take it that way.
25:54
Speaker 1: Lots of love. I thought it was laugh out loud.
25:58
Speaker 2: Right, that's what it means. The didn't know that. He
26:00
Speaker 2: thought he was saying, like, hang in there, l O, I.
26:02
Speaker 1: Gotcha, got cha? Okay, I missed. I'm a little less
26:05
Speaker 1: sick today.
26:06
Speaker 2: That's all right. I stole that joke from family guy.
26:08
Speaker 3: Anyway, In the end, though, they did get, you know,
26:12
Speaker 3: a pretty good take. They got about three hundred thousand
26:15
Speaker 3: dollars worth of cash, and then I guess we should
26:19
Speaker 3: probably take a break here. But then they exited the
26:21
Speaker 3: bank and all h e double hockey sticks broke loose.
26:56
Speaker 2: Okay, chuck, it's about nine five, believe eight minutes has passed,
27:02
Speaker 2: the timers going off on their stopwatches, and Amal Mataseranu
27:06
Speaker 2: and Larry Phillips are now planning on leaving the bank.
27:10
Speaker 2: They have a duffel bag with about three hundred grand
27:12
Speaker 2: in cash, and supposedly right when they walk out the door,
27:16
Speaker 2: the die packs in the bag go off and completely
27:19
Speaker 2: ruin the cash. So the cash that they thought was
27:22
Speaker 2: going to be there wasn't there. The cash that they
27:24
Speaker 2: did get was now completely ruined forever because the die packs.
27:28
Speaker 2: And they come out and realize that the cops have
27:32
Speaker 2: them surrounded that this eight minute response time thing doesn't
27:36
Speaker 2: count when the cops watch you walk into the bank
27:38
Speaker 2: with ski masks in AK forty sevens.
27:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, what kind of surrounded are we talking about here?
27:44
Speaker 2: We're talking about surrounded on every side with police helicopters
27:48
Speaker 2: hovering overhead. That's what they walked out of the bank into.
27:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the end, there would be more than three
27:54
Speaker 3: hundred cops from five different agencies that were engaged in
27:58
Speaker 3: the shootout, three hundred against two. That gives you a
28:04
Speaker 3: little insight into just how much more heavily armed these
28:07
Speaker 3: guys were. That it lasted this long, but they walked
28:10
Speaker 3: out to that scene and immediately turned North Hollywood into
28:15
Speaker 3: a war zone. I've watched a lot of video this stuff,
28:18
Speaker 3: and this is one of the remarkable things is a
28:21
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff is on video. You know, LA
28:24
Speaker 3: is notorious for you know, anytime something like this is happening,
28:28
Speaker 3: there's six helicopters, news helicopters overhead, like within minutes, just
28:32
Speaker 3: kind of live streaming, or I guess you wouldn't.
28:36
Speaker 1: Call it live streaming then what.
28:37
Speaker 2: Would you just say broadcasting?
28:39
Speaker 1: Live broadcasting? There you go, Oh man, it's been so long.
28:42
Speaker 2: You're so twenty twenties.
28:43
Speaker 3: I am so yeah, live broadcasting this thing from above,
28:47
Speaker 3: so you can watch a lot of this take place,
28:49
Speaker 3: which is horrifying. But again, if you've seen enough movies,
28:52
Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, it looks like a lot of movies
28:54
Speaker 3: I've seen. But a lot of the interviews that you
28:57
Speaker 3: know since then that have happened with cops that were
28:59
Speaker 3: there and take place basically said like, these guys just
29:02
Speaker 3: came out and started shooting at everything that moved, citizens, cars, buildings,
29:10
Speaker 3: police cars at the times at the time didn't have
29:13
Speaker 3: kevlar siding and their doors and stuff. So like, hiding
29:17
Speaker 3: inside a police car was no good. Hiding behind a
29:20
Speaker 3: police car was better because the bullet going all the
29:23
Speaker 3: way through it at least is going to you know,
29:25
Speaker 3: ricochet around and probably not go like straight into you.
29:28
Speaker 3: But you know, they were it was all of a sudden,
29:30
Speaker 3: it was like Vietnam out there in North Hollywood.
29:33
Speaker 2: So here's the thing. When the cops had them surrounded
29:36
Speaker 2: and were waiting for them to come out, Number one
29:39
Speaker 2: in the cops mind, they had no idea if the
29:41
Speaker 2: whole place inside had just been massacred. Because most robbers
29:45
Speaker 2: don't walk in and start shooting into the air. Again,
29:47
Speaker 2: that's movie stuff that these guys were influenced by. So
29:50
Speaker 2: they heard like, like I think, fifty rounds of automatic
29:53
Speaker 2: rifle fire in the bank while they were waiting for
29:56
Speaker 2: these guys to come out, and they didn't know if
29:58
Speaker 2: everyone inside was just completely killed. That was number one,
30:02
Speaker 2: But number two the cops also presume, based on experience
30:06
Speaker 2: and history, that when these guys came out and saw
30:09
Speaker 2: they were surrounded not just by cops and cop cars
30:12
Speaker 2: but also helicopters, that they would just you know, put
30:14
Speaker 2: their guns down, put their hands up. So they were
30:17
Speaker 2: surprised at the response that these two guys took on
30:21
Speaker 2: just even just this first initial wave of dozens of cops.
30:25
Speaker 2: And then they were further surprised when the guy's bullets
30:28
Speaker 2: started going right through any kevlar vests, started going right
30:32
Speaker 2: through the police cars, started going through buildings, through concrete buildings.
30:36
Speaker 2: There was a concrete locksmith like kind of like a
30:38
Speaker 2: photo mat in the parking lot that they were taking
30:41
Speaker 2: shelter behind. The bullets were going through them. This was
30:45
Speaker 2: it just suddenly turned completely one hundred and eighty degrees
30:49
Speaker 2: from their expectations. And then even worse than that, they
30:52
Speaker 2: were finding their own guns were having basically just pinging.
30:56
Speaker 2: The bullets were pinging off of these guys because they
30:58
Speaker 2: were wearing so much body the armor. So this is
31:01
Speaker 2: about the moment almost immediately out of the gate when
31:04
Speaker 2: the cops were like, this is nothing like anything we've
31:07
Speaker 2: ever experienced before, and we are out gunned right now.
31:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this sounds unbelievable, but it's true.
31:14
Speaker 3: It was so bad right away that the cops realized
31:18
Speaker 3: that and said, if there's any available units, go to
31:21
Speaker 3: the gun store down the street and get everything you can.
31:26
Speaker 3: Like they literally went to a gun store to re
31:29
Speaker 3: arm or you know, I guess what would you call
31:32
Speaker 3: it when your armament, Yeah, I guess. So they leveled
31:37
Speaker 3: up on their guns and they did get guns. Apparently
31:41
Speaker 3: according to like recovered ammunition stuff, they didn't actually end
31:45
Speaker 3: up using those in the firefight because I guess, you know,
31:48
Speaker 3: the whole thing didn't last that long, and I'm sure
31:50
Speaker 3: it took a while to you know, talk the store
31:53
Speaker 3: owner and giving up these guns and getting the matching
31:56
Speaker 3: ammunition and all that. But they sent for backup for
31:59
Speaker 3: them by going to a gun store, which is just
32:01
Speaker 3: crazy to think about. And they were like, we need
32:05
Speaker 3: the SWAT team. This is we're police cruiser guys, and
32:08
Speaker 3: that we have revolvers or nine millimeters and this ain't happening.
32:13
Speaker 3: Swat team is downtown. Took him about eighteen minutes to
32:16
Speaker 3: get there, and they got there though. They finally showed up,
32:19
Speaker 3: and apparently it was such a quick sort of let's
32:23
Speaker 3: get their quick thing that one of the SWAT officers
32:26
Speaker 3: was about to go on a jog and he shows
32:28
Speaker 3: up in like jogging shorts.
32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you watched like the footage of the of
32:33
Speaker 2: them taking mitos Urano, he's the first one to them
32:35
Speaker 2: and it's kind of silly looking to be honest.
32:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so.
32:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, this first wave of cops that they encountered, I
32:43
Speaker 2: don't know how many cruisers there were, but let's say
32:45
Speaker 2: there's probably six and maybe a dozen or so cops.
32:48
Speaker 2: There were also two bystanders who got caught in the crossfire,
32:54
Speaker 2: both of whom ended up getting shot by those ricochet
32:56
Speaker 2: bullets going through cop cars that they were hiding behind.
33:01
Speaker 2: Cops were getting shot like through their kevlar vests. I
33:04
Speaker 2: think a number of cops were injured and even worse,
33:07
Speaker 2: they were pinned down. They were in what's called the
33:09
Speaker 2: kill zone. Like these guys were very easily able to
33:12
Speaker 2: shoot any of these people who were fairly close to them,
33:17
Speaker 2: and so these cops had to basically retreat or be
33:20
Speaker 2: pinned down. And some of them were pinned down because
33:22
Speaker 2: they were shot. So if you kind of watch some
33:25
Speaker 2: of the footage or you you know, read about it,
33:29
Speaker 2: that kind of gets left out. And that was something
33:31
Speaker 2: I thought that the Situation Critical documentary really kind of
33:35
Speaker 2: drove home, Like there were some people who were in grave,
33:39
Speaker 2: grave danger in the first like ten to fifteen minutes
33:43
Speaker 2: of this firefight before backup arrived. And I also saw
33:47
Speaker 2: it described that the Phillips in Mattisaranu at one point,
33:53
Speaker 2: especially when they were engaged with that first wave of
33:56
Speaker 2: cops who were totally unprepared and une to deal with them,
34:01
Speaker 2: that they could have made a getaway, and they seem
34:04
Speaker 2: to have decided that they were wanted to stay and
34:06
Speaker 2: fight instead. Yeah, that's unusual.
34:11
Speaker 3: And I'm curious about the wisdom of that, Like if
34:16
Speaker 3: they had left, if these guys just would have went
34:18
Speaker 3: and got in their car and tried to get out
34:19
Speaker 3: of there, I don't know.
34:20
Speaker 2: Who knows. I mean, I don't know, the fact that
34:22
Speaker 2: they had a helicopter on them would have made it
34:23
Speaker 2: pretty difficult, but who knows. Could have been way worse.
34:27
Speaker 2: It could have been shorter. Who knows what could have happened.
34:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think the point was that they, like
34:32
Speaker 2: bank robbers, don't try to stick around when they're given
34:35
Speaker 2: the option to try to make a run for it,
34:37
Speaker 2: and these guys.
34:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not gonna Monday Morning quarterback this thing years
34:42
Speaker 3: later in my podcast Booth because I wasn't the one,
34:46
Speaker 3: you know, getting shot at on the street. So there
34:49
Speaker 3: was one citizen hero among this crowd, which was a dentist,
34:54
Speaker 3: doctor Jorge Montes, had an office across the street, and
34:58
Speaker 3: two cops that were injured like crawled up the stairs
35:01
Speaker 3: to his office and he it sounds like he had
35:04
Speaker 3: saved at least one of their lives. He treated them immediately,
35:07
Speaker 3: and one of the cops had a shrapnel in his ankle,
35:12
Speaker 3: and Montes was smart enough to be like, we should
35:16
Speaker 3: leave that in there, Like, I'll treat you, but I'm
35:18
Speaker 3: not taking that out because it could get worse. And
35:20
Speaker 3: that officer later said that he probably saved my life
35:22
Speaker 3: because I probably would have led out.
35:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty great. So a few minutes before ten,
35:29
Speaker 2: this firefight has been going on for thirty plus minutes. Now, okay,
35:36
Speaker 2: Phillips and Mantaseranu decide that this is a really fateful
35:40
Speaker 2: decision and no one has any idea why, probably will
35:43
Speaker 2: never know why. But mataseranuh gets in their white Chevy Celebrity,
35:47
Speaker 2: the ugliest getaway car ever. Oh there's one other thing
35:51
Speaker 2: about that white Chevy Celebrity. They had it backed up
35:53
Speaker 2: to the bank in a parking space, and so when
35:56
Speaker 2: they came out and they were shooting at the cops
35:58
Speaker 2: and everybody that moved for thirty minutes with their assault weapons.
36:03
Speaker 2: Whenever their assault rifle would like run out of ammo
36:07
Speaker 2: or jam or something, they just throw it down, go
36:10
Speaker 2: to the trunk of the car and come back with
36:11
Speaker 2: a brand new assault rifle. And they had like drums,
36:14
Speaker 2: like one hundred round drums as clips. So they were
36:18
Speaker 2: really doing a lot of damage. And at some point
36:21
Speaker 2: they decided let's head out. Matisanu gets in the Chevy
36:25
Speaker 2: Celebrity and rather than get in with him, Larry Phillips
36:30
Speaker 2: decides to walk alongside just firing at everybody while Madisranu
36:35
Speaker 2: slowly drives with him. And then the really faithful decision
36:40
Speaker 2: is made where they decide to split up and Larry
36:43
Speaker 2: Phillips peels off for Matiseranu and starts walking down the
36:47
Speaker 2: sidewalk of a street, a side street that a residential
36:50
Speaker 2: street to a residential area.
36:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I think I read a
36:56
Speaker 3: lot about this too. I think he might have thought
36:57
Speaker 3: he was providing some initial cover and the whole split
37:01
Speaker 3: up thing is just, you know, judging from the movies,
37:04
Speaker 3: I think sometimes that's just what they decide to do, like,
37:07
Speaker 3: you know, instead of concentrating everything on us, if we
37:10
Speaker 3: split up, that'll that'll split the you know, the burden
37:14
Speaker 3: or whatever.
37:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I get that. I also, based on
37:18
Speaker 2: how quickly things happened after that, it also makes me
37:21
Speaker 2: wonder if he was like, I'm just gonna go take
37:23
Speaker 2: my last stand.
37:24
Speaker 3: Well maybe, I mean, who knows. We're never gonna know, basically,
37:27
Speaker 3: and you'll soon find out why. So in the end
37:31
Speaker 3: of Phillips was shot eleven times. He's walking down this
37:35
Speaker 3: side street.
37:35
Speaker 2: He's still walking after he's some of these most of
37:38
Speaker 2: these shots.
37:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's walking down the side street. He's firing at
37:42
Speaker 3: everything he can, and he gets just like in the movies,
37:46
Speaker 3: like an old Western or something, a cop shoots his hand,
37:49
Speaker 3: like shoots the gun out of his hand by shooting
37:51
Speaker 3: his hand, he reaches down, picks it up, puts it
37:54
Speaker 3: under his chin, and in an attempt to kill himself
37:59
Speaker 3: and a trigger and you know, it was sort of
38:02
Speaker 3: a bang bang thing. No one sure which was the
38:05
Speaker 3: kill shot, but sort of right along that time at
38:08
Speaker 3: either right when it happened or right after he fell,
38:11
Speaker 3: a cop had shot him true romance style, through the
38:16
Speaker 3: side of his body where there was no protection, no
38:20
Speaker 3: protective vest because that stuff is usually like it's on
38:23
Speaker 3: your back, it's on your chest, but kind of not
38:25
Speaker 3: through the side, and he severed his spine and he
38:28
Speaker 3: was dead immediately from one of the two wounds.
38:31
Speaker 2: So Larry Phillips is now dead one way or another,
38:35
Speaker 2: either by his own hand or by the cops shot.
38:39
Speaker 2: And that is not the end of things, because mattis
38:42
Speaker 2: Ranu is still on the move. He's in his white
38:44
Speaker 2: celebrity moving down the street past where Phillips has just died.
38:51
Speaker 2: And here's just crazy because as we'll see the LAPD
38:56
Speaker 2: is very much fetted after this for having saved nor
39:00
Speaker 2: Hollywood taken on these guys who outgunned them. But there's
39:04
Speaker 2: a really critical point that I think people just moved
39:06
Speaker 2: right past. When they were moving up Archwood, this residential street,
39:11
Speaker 2: it was not closed off, So people were driving past
39:16
Speaker 2: Emil Mattiseranu within feet, like a handful of feet of
39:21
Speaker 2: this guy, and they were confused, they didn't know what
39:23
Speaker 2: was going on. And he's strapped with like this ak
39:26
Speaker 2: driving the white celebrity which now has this tire shot
39:28
Speaker 2: out looking for another car, and at least three or
39:31
Speaker 2: four pass him before he finally stops and picks one
39:35
Speaker 2: and start shooting at the car. And that was a huge,
39:38
Speaker 2: huge failure on the LAPD's part because those guys could
39:41
Speaker 2: have gone anywhere on Archwood Street and started taking hostages easily.
39:46
Speaker 2: What was the failure that they didn't close the street off, Like,
39:49
Speaker 2: I don't understand how you can do about they had
39:51
Speaker 2: time bank robbery, you could close it off somewhere back
39:54
Speaker 2: there there was through traffic still coming down Archwood, like
39:58
Speaker 2: right by the bank. If you watch it, it's crazy
40:01
Speaker 2: that that's no.
40:01
Speaker 3: I no, I just don't. I don't know, man, I
40:03
Speaker 3: think that's also Monday morning quarterbacking. I don't know if
40:06
Speaker 3: they could have they were in the middle of a shootout.
40:08
Speaker 3: I just I don't know.
40:09
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole LAPD was focused on this shootout.
40:13
Speaker 2: I feel like they could have shut the street down.
40:15
Speaker 3: It's just crazy to me. All right, agree to disagree, Okay?
40:19
Speaker 3: At any rate, he's firing at cars. He gets in
40:21
Speaker 3: this guy's jeep pickup truck, and the guy got injured.
40:26
Speaker 3: He was fine. He ran out of there and you know,
40:28
Speaker 3: got away at least, and he starts, you know, he
40:31
Speaker 3: still thinks he can get out of there. I guess
40:32
Speaker 3: he's transferring weapons from that Chevy to the truck, and
40:37
Speaker 3: three swat guys drive over there. He comes out again,
40:41
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, there's another shootout on the
40:43
Speaker 3: street movie style, with both of them kind of crouched
40:46
Speaker 3: behind these cars, and the cops do a very smart thing,
40:52
Speaker 3: which is shoot underneath the car, at his feet, at
40:55
Speaker 3: his legs, whatever they can hit, and they end up
40:57
Speaker 3: hitting him twenty eight times and dropped him.
41:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, can you imagine taking twenty eight shots in
41:02
Speaker 2: your legs and feet?
41:05
Speaker 1: I can imagine one.
41:06
Speaker 2: He put his hands up, he gave up, he surrendered
41:10
Speaker 2: and was laying behind the celebrity. I think in the
41:14
Speaker 2: end when they captured him, twelve officers had been injured,
41:19
Speaker 2: had been shot somewhere in pretty bad shape. Miraculously all survived.
41:24
Speaker 2: Eight bystanders had been injured. All of them survived. Everyone
41:27
Speaker 2: in the bank survived, and it turned out that the
41:30
Speaker 2: only two people who didn't survive were Larry Phillips and
41:34
Speaker 2: Emil Mattiseranu, who ended up bleeding to death from his
41:37
Speaker 2: injuries lying behind that chevy celebrity. Isn't that nuts yet, Chuck?
41:43
Speaker 2: I think seventeen or eighteen hundred rounds were fired in
41:47
Speaker 2: this forty four minute firefight, and only two people died,
41:51
Speaker 2: the bank robbers.
41:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that became a matter of just sort of
41:56
Speaker 3: further scrutiny because Mattiserano, you know, he's there, he's bleeding,
42:02
Speaker 3: and he says, you know, why don't you put a
42:04
Speaker 3: bullet through my head? And when the EMTs show up,
42:07
Speaker 3: the cops keep them away, They said, don't come over here.
42:10
Speaker 3: EMT has never examined him, and he slowly bled out
42:14
Speaker 3: basically over the next hour and died. They were you know,
42:18
Speaker 3: heavily scrutinized. I think there was an attorney that ended
42:22
Speaker 3: up filing a suit on behalf of the kids that said, hey,
42:26
Speaker 3: you know, regardless of whether this guy was a bank robber,
42:30
Speaker 3: you can't you know, you still have an obligation to
42:32
Speaker 3: treat an injured human on the ground as a cop.
42:36
Speaker 3: The cops response was like, we didn't know if there
42:38
Speaker 3: were other people involved, if they were around, if they
42:41
Speaker 3: had a sniper, if they had explosives on their body.
42:44
Speaker 3: We didn't want to put those EMTs in danger. And
42:46
Speaker 3: in the end they dropped. I'm sorry, it was a
42:50
Speaker 3: deadlock jury at first, so it was a mistrial, and
42:53
Speaker 3: then they decided not to go further with another case
42:57
Speaker 3: because they might be countersued for malicious prosecution.
43:01
Speaker 2: Well put, did you read the La Times article on that.
43:05
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they really went to town putting this thing together,
43:08
Speaker 2: and no one came out looking okay, you.
43:11
Speaker 3: Know no, And it was you know, the LA PD
43:14
Speaker 3: has always had a checkered reputation, so like at first
43:18
Speaker 3: they were heroes because this was all over the news,
43:21
Speaker 3: and this was you know a handful of years after
43:24
Speaker 3: Rodney King, when they had probably an all time low
43:26
Speaker 3: opinion rating, so they were like, look, look at the
43:29
Speaker 3: cops like protecting you and putting their lives at risk.
43:32
Speaker 3: So it was good for pr at first, but then
43:35
Speaker 3: this they let them bleed out in the street for
43:37
Speaker 3: an hour. I'm sure a lot of people were like
43:39
Speaker 3: good and a lot of people are like, yeah, you
43:40
Speaker 3: still can't do that.
43:41
Speaker 2: Sure. So one of the other outcomes of this was
43:46
Speaker 2: that it changed police forces across the United States forever.
43:51
Speaker 2: Like the police realized that they were not equipped for
43:56
Speaker 2: something like this to happen in not only Los Angeles
43:59
Speaker 2: but every other town in the United States. And in
44:03
Speaker 2: the Defense Spending Act, I think of nineteen ninety seven,
44:07
Speaker 2: they passed a section called ten thirty three that said
44:12
Speaker 2: that the Department of Defense can sell any access armory,
44:16
Speaker 2: weapons materiel to local police departments. Now that's a new thing,
44:22
Speaker 2: and it turned into what's been roundly considered the militarization
44:26
Speaker 2: of the police. That's had all sorts of knock on effects, including,
44:31
Speaker 2: according to multiple studies, an increase in death during police shootings.
44:37
Speaker 2: And that's a big criticism of this that rather than
44:39
Speaker 2: people saying let's reduce the public's access to things like
44:43
Speaker 2: assault rifles that can kill tons of people and have
44:47
Speaker 2: firefights like this. Instead, the push has been to let's
44:51
Speaker 2: arm the cops equally to these criminals that can be
44:56
Speaker 2: armed to the teeth as well, to make it even,
45:00
Speaker 2: which there's a logic to it, sure, but you could
45:02
Speaker 2: also reduce the public's access to those kinds of things
45:06
Speaker 2: as well, and that didn't really happen.
45:09
Speaker 1: Well.
45:09
Speaker 3: One of the good things that came out of it
45:11
Speaker 3: was PTSD counseling for police officers was not such a
45:16
Speaker 3: big thing at the time, and after this it became
45:18
Speaker 3: much more just sort of implemented across the country.
45:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a good thing, for sure. Anything else,
45:25
Speaker 2: I got nothing else. I think there's in Grand Theft
45:28
Speaker 2: Auto five, one of the heists, the Palletto score is
45:31
Speaker 2: based on this too. And there's a movie called forty
45:35
Speaker 2: four Minutes that was made for TV on FX and
45:37
Speaker 2: it's terrible. I bet if you want to know anything
45:42
Speaker 2: else about the North Hollywood shootout, there's plenty to see
45:46
Speaker 2: and read about that. And while you're reading and seeing
45:50
Speaker 2: about the North Hollywood shootout, I think it's time for
45:53
Speaker 2: listener man.
45:56
Speaker 3: I'm going to call this follow up that I feel
46:00
Speaker 3: pretty bad about. We did our podcast episode on Kenton
46:03
Speaker 3: Greua Grand Canyon River Adventure not too long ago, and
46:08
Speaker 3: we actually heard from his wife, Michelle Grua, who was
46:14
Speaker 3: not a stuff you should know listener, but someone told
46:15
Speaker 3: her about it. She listened, and she wanted to clear
46:18
Speaker 3: up some things and some I'm going to read it.
46:21
Speaker 3: It's a little lenkedy, but I feel like we owe
46:23
Speaker 3: it to her. Hey, guys, I was surprised to be
46:26
Speaker 3: informed by a friend of your podcast about my late
46:28
Speaker 3: husband Factor. Yes, our children and I all called him Factor.
46:32
Speaker 3: That was his preferred name. I appreciate that you obtained
46:35
Speaker 3: most of your information from Kevin's book The Emerald Mile,
46:38
Speaker 3: which is for the most part accurate. There are some
46:40
Speaker 3: things that you said that are not accurate, and depictions
46:43
Speaker 3: of Factor that I'd like to set straight. These things
46:46
Speaker 3: are likely only important to me our children into his
46:49
Speaker 3: two brothers if they were to ever hear your podcast.
46:52
Speaker 3: I can tell that you appreciated his adventurous spirit and
46:54
Speaker 3: the grandiosity of the things he did, but I would
46:56
Speaker 3: gently suggest that you might consider the feelings of those
46:59
Speaker 3: left behind with regard to the way you depict someone.
47:02
Speaker 3: He's not just some character and a really cool story.
47:05
Speaker 3: He's someone's husband, father, and brother who has sorely missed.
47:09
Speaker 3: I do not expect any kind of retraction public retraction.
47:12
Speaker 3: I just wanted to let you know about the inaccuracy
47:16
Speaker 3: so you could have a more clear picture of him.
47:18
Speaker 3: He was the most humble, gracious, generous, respectful, considerate, fear
47:22
Speaker 3: soul I've ever met, truly one of a kind and
47:24
Speaker 3: the greatest factor in my life. Regarding the description of
47:28
Speaker 3: him really liking booze and hiking out to obtain extra liquor,
47:32
Speaker 3: the passengers on that particular commercial trip are the ones
47:35
Speaker 3: who requested extra booze, and given that there's no delivery
47:39
Speaker 3: into the canyon, he offered to hike out and procure
47:42
Speaker 3: a resupply for them. Regarding the moccasins, he was a purist,
47:46
Speaker 3: and his reasoning was that the ancient Queblins who'd lived
47:49
Speaker 3: in the canyon had likely worn moccasins, and he wanted
47:51
Speaker 3: to pay homage to them and not have any unfair
47:54
Speaker 3: modern advantage like hiking boots. He had scouted the route before,
47:58
Speaker 3: and the first through hike attempt he had placed food caches, cases, cases,
48:05
Speaker 3: cases for that hike, as well as doing so the
48:08
Speaker 3: second time as an insight into his character. He hiked
48:11
Speaker 3: back in to remove all of them after the hike,
48:13
Speaker 3: leaving no trace.
48:14
Speaker 1: You said that he was obsessed.
48:16
Speaker 3: If you can say that about someone who smokes that
48:18
Speaker 3: much pot, I feel like you may have missed a
48:21
Speaker 3: key element of Kenton's character and you're reading about him
48:24
Speaker 3: that he had a fierce intellect, an intense focus, and
48:26
Speaker 3: once he got ahold of an idea, he ruminated on it,
48:29
Speaker 3: turned it over and over in his mind until he
48:31
Speaker 3: worked out all the details. Not consistent with the sleepy
48:34
Speaker 3: image you conjure up when thinking about a typical Stoner.
48:38
Speaker 3: It also bears mentioning that the original idea was Wally Wrists. Wally,
48:43
Speaker 3: Rudy and Kenton did the original Speed one, but Wally
48:45
Speaker 3: was no longer working on the river in eighty three
48:48
Speaker 3: and thus not able to partake this time around.
48:51
Speaker 1: Kenton came up with the idea to put.
48:53
Speaker 3: A second set of oar locks on the boat so
48:56
Speaker 3: you could have two rowing stations to tackle the flat
48:59
Speaker 3: water at the far west of the canyon. As far
49:01
Speaker 3: as the fine, the fine that was imposed as reportedly
49:05
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars. But I have the cancel check to
49:08
Speaker 3: the Cocochino County Magistrate in the amount of two hundred
49:11
Speaker 3: and fifty dollars paid by Kenton, so your assertion that
49:14
Speaker 3: he couldn't afford.
49:15
Speaker 1: It is not accurate.
49:17
Speaker 3: He never mentioned any imposition of community service to me
49:20
Speaker 3: as well, and we are also quite sure of how
49:23
Speaker 3: he died. He died not due collision or impact, but
49:27
Speaker 3: from the spontaneous a ordit dissection, not an aneurysm. He
49:32
Speaker 3: was found unresponsive on the trail by a hiker while
49:35
Speaker 3: the kids and I were home awaiting his return. He
49:38
Speaker 3: was not dead when the hiker found him. He was
49:40
Speaker 3: taken to the local hospital, where resuscitation efforts failed. He
49:44
Speaker 3: wasn't laying in a peaceful position. The hiker said he
49:47
Speaker 3: was still astride as bike, and it appeared that he
49:50
Speaker 3: had just tipped over. Indeed, he had a little cut
49:52
Speaker 3: over his ear where his sunglasses dug into the side
49:54
Speaker 3: of his head when he landed. As a physician myself,
49:58
Speaker 3: I can tell you he was probably in significant chest
50:01
Speaker 3: pain and he died about two hundred yards after passing
50:04
Speaker 3: through what would have been a busy trailhead parking area.
50:07
Speaker 3: So he was probably peddling like hell to get home
50:10
Speaker 3: just a couple of miles away, but dissected and lost
50:13
Speaker 3: consciousness less than a minute after passing through the lot.
50:17
Speaker 3: I only discovered it when he was two hours late
50:19
Speaker 3: getting home from the ride and called the hospital where
50:22
Speaker 3: I worked to see if they had any Mountain bikers
50:24
Speaker 3: that had come in. They said yes, but they weren't
50:26
Speaker 3: able to identify him, and that was the last moment
50:29
Speaker 3: of true peace that I had. I am glad you
50:31
Speaker 3: found a story so compelling. I'm sure he's glad people
50:34
Speaker 3: are hearing of it and he doesn't have to do
50:36
Speaker 3: the telling himself. But accuracy is important. Please don't paint
50:41
Speaker 3: him as a caricature. Best Michelle Grua and I emailed
50:46
Speaker 3: her a very long email back, and I felt terrible
50:49
Speaker 3: about all this, and she was very sweet and much
50:51
Speaker 3: more graceful than I would have been in her position.
50:54
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was going to say, I mean, if
50:56
Speaker 2: you're going to get taken to task by a living
50:58
Speaker 2: relative of someone we profile, all it's about is as
51:02
Speaker 2: nice as it can get, for sure.
51:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, So thank you Michelle for that, and just publicly,
51:06
Speaker 3: I'm sorry for anything we did that costs you any upset.
51:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. It was definitely not our intent to create
51:12
Speaker 2: a caricature out of him. That's never our intent. So
51:14
Speaker 2: sorry that that happened inadvertently, and thank you for taking
51:18
Speaker 2: the time to write all that, and thank you Chuck
51:20
Speaker 2: for reading all of it. Certainly, if you want to
51:23
Speaker 2: get in touch with us, like Michelle Grua did, you
51:26
Speaker 2: can use email as she did, as well send it
51:29
Speaker 2: off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
51:36
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
51:38
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51:40
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51:44
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