Beiruty wrote:RHenriksen wrote:JALLEN wrote:It seemed like no officers appeared in the yard for several minutes afterwards. I wonder why?
A couple of possible explanations leap to mind:
a) not wanting to be surprised by a second attacker, like they were by BMW guy
b)
giving the BG time to bleed out...
b) above.
LAPD had to defend an expensive lawsuit for letting Emil Mătăsăreanu do exactly that after the North Hollywood Bank of America shoot out. That all of the available EMS units were tied up rendering care to Mătăsăreanu's and Larry Phillip Jr's many gunshot
victims did not deter Mătăsăreanu's evil wench of a mother (who lived literally right around the corner from us at the time) from filing a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of his offspring because he bled out before LAPD SWAT would allow EMS to even enter what they called the "hot zone."
BTW, it was THIS shootout that led to California's passing of a 10 round magazine limit for all semiautomatic firearms. The inventory of the weaponry and the number of rounds fired follows (
SOURCE):
- A Bushmaster Dissipator AR-15 illegally converted to fire full auto, with two 100-round Beta Magazines
- two Norinco Type 56 S rifles (AK variants), illegally purchased by Phillips which he illegally modifed to shoot full auto
- A Norinco Type 56 S-1 (AK variant) illegally modified to shoot full auto
- Several 75 to 100-round drum magazines, as well as 30 round box magazines for the AKs
- A semiautomatic HK-91 rifle (7.62 NATO) with several 30-round magazines,
- a Beretta 92FS Inox with several magazines.
Against this, responding officers were armed with their Beretta 92 sidearms, and one had a shotgun. The above linked Wiki article makes no mention of it, but a nearby gunstore eventually loaned out a couple of AR15s to the first squad cars that showed up, before the SWAT team got there, armed with their own AR15s.
- Approximately 1,100 rounds fired by Phillips and Mătăsăreanu, including between 60 and 120 rounds fired from the HK91—a full on .308 battle rifle

- Approximately 650 rounds were fired by police.
Phillips "legally" purchased two of the AKs, but the purchases were actually illegal because he was already a convicted felon at the time. California did not at the time, and so far as I know still does not, use the NICS system....performing their own background checks instead. The additional time required for a background check is
supposed to make the process more thorough—one of the libtards' justifications for not using NICS instead—but that is obviously hogwash as he successfully made the purchases.
But the stupidity doesn't stop there.......
These guys were "pros" and this was not their first armed heist:
- On July 20, 1993 they robbed an armored car in Littleton, Colorado.
- In October 1993, they were arrested in Glendale, California, for speeding. After Phillips surrendered with a concealed weapon, police found two semi-automatic rifles, two handguns, over 1,600 rounds of 7.62×39mm ammo, 1,200 rounds of 9mm and .45 ACP ammo, radio scanners, smoke bombs, IEDs, body armor vests, and three different California licence plates. They were Initially charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. They both served one hundred days in jail and were placed on three years' probation. Upon their release,most of their seized property was returned to them.
- On June 14, 1995, they ambushed a Brinks armored car, killing one of the guards during the robbery.
- In May 1996, they robbed two B of A branches in the San Fernando Valley, getting away with approximately $1.5 million.
- By then, Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were known to law enforcement as the "High Incident Bandits" because of the types of weaponry they had used in three robberies before the North Hollywood shootout.
What we have here is not just a couple of clearly dangerous predators with absolutely no respect for ANY gun-control laws, but also a SERIOUS failure to communicate between various agencies of the state's government.
WHOSE brilliant idea was it to
return their rifles and ammo to two CONVICTED FELONS after they were released from jail? How on God's green earth did California's vaunted background check system allow—with a then 15 day long waiting period—a convicted felon with a long history of robbing banks and armored cars, and of committing murder during such robberies, to go ahead and take possession of two more AKs purchased from a gunstore?
There is are several lessons and some fallout after this shootout:
- Background checks with waiting periods don't work.
- Why do they not work? Because felons don't care about background checks and waiting periods, and they will still try to buy guns over the counter as well as obtaining them on the black market.
- Either way, they're going to get their hands on guns, and no LAW is going to stop them.
- Sometimes, they actually get away with breaking the law when they attempt to buy guns over the counter because all the layers of bureaucracy created by the law serve only to further clog up the system (and other times they get away with it because Eric Holder actually encourages the sale).
- California subsequently passed a magazine ban for mags over 10 rounds capacity, but existing mags were grandfathered, so Phillips and Mătăsăreanu would have still been able to procure those Beta mags and the 30 round mags if they had not already had them......ONE reason we know that magazine capacity limits won't work.
- We know for a certain and proven fact that the Phillips and Mătăsăreanus of the world don't give a snap for such laws, and the only people these laws actually hinder are the law-abiding.
- It was VERY shortly after the North Hollywood shootout that police departments nationwide started issuing AR15 patrol rifles to their line officers as a matter of course. Prior to then, typically only SWAT departments used them with any degree of regularly. Now they are as common in any squad car as the ubiquitous pump action 12 gauge shotgun.
I realize that all some this is tangential at best to the OP, but there are two similarities:
- Law breakers already in possession of firearms; and
- Bad guy down and bleeding out because police understandably feel no particular compulsion to render immediate aid to a guy who was just trying to kill them, and who in fact had actually shot them.
BTW, did anyone notice that the officer who was to the shooter's right, and who dodged away further to the shooter's right after being shot in the stomach, actually discharged a couple of rounds directly into the ground between himself and the other officer in black clothing? It looks like a variation on something that a Pasadena cop once told me—that it is fairly common for the first shot fired by a cop in a shooting to actually be fired from the low-ready as they are raising their weapon, causing the first round to go low into the ground before getting a shot of into the bad guy. With the officer in the video, he must have been reflexively pulling the trigger after he got hit, without watching where his shots were going. It's an understandable but regrettable reaction, and it could have easily resulted in a blue on blue shooting as it looked like the officer in black was still in the line of fire relative to the other officer.
.....all over drugs.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT