Reactions To A Vicious Robbery: LA Youth staff members comment on the February 28 bank robbery in North Hollywood which resulted in the deaths of two suspects and the injury of 10 police officers.
Staff reactions to a shooting and robbery in LA.
“The March first headline of the Los Angeles Times read “Gunfire, Hostages and Terror.” Big deal. So what? I am constantly bombarded with words similar to these. I then glance at the photograph: a caught felon on the verge of death flashing me a devilish grin. There’s the deal. These guys were not your ordinary stocking-over-the-face, shoot-em-up bank robbers; they were different. Clad like Green Berets on a top secret mission, these robbers nonchalantly took the upper-hand, putting the police in their place. That’s what caught my eye, head-to-toe bullet-proof vests, 150 shells, AK-47’s. A real live movie: but wait, was this an evil awakening to what might lie ahead? Why can ordinary people get access to all of this, why couldn’t the cops protect us more, how could those guys do so much damage?
—Cate Norian, Marlborough School
I’ve got mixed reactions about the shooting. It sucks that so many people got hurt, physically and mentally. At the same time, I was pretty amazed at how those bank robbers went about their “jobs.” They had pretty powerful weapons. It makes you wonder about how anyone has access to machines that kill. Still, I don’t know these people personally so I guess I ‘m not as affected by it as I should be. If I knew the personal lives of the people involved, I’d be thinking about it more. Also, I’m getting kind of used to the fact that gunfire and violence is becoming more common in L.A., so one more gunfight isn’t gonna make me break down and cry. What happened sucked, it shouldn’t happen again, but life goes on!
—Judith Shophet, Beverly Hills HS
My dad told me about it in the car on the ride home from school. “Oh,” I thought, “that’s terrible,” and listened to the song playing on the radio.
That night, while eating my dinner, a thought passed through my head. It was a brief flicker, here and gone a second: should I watch the news tonight? I went to sleep after my meal.
The next morning, placing glazed donuts on trays at the bakery I worked at, I caught a few words on the radio: “AK-47”, “two dead,” “ten officers injured,” then sat down to watch Animaniacs on our portable TV.
We talked about it at the LA YOUTH staff meeting that afternoon. For some reason, I couldn’t get myself to become passionate about it. I knew I should’ve been outraged, that I should’ve felt sympathetic for the victims, that I should’ve been overwhelmed by grief and concern for the fact that my sister could have been a victim. But I wasn’t. I felt nothing.
—Kheang Long, Bravo Medical Magnet
My first day on vacation and all I wanted to do was watch TV until 1 and then go to swimming practice, but when I turned on the TV, there was only breaking news about the bank robbery on all the channels. The only channel that didn’t have a breaking story was 13, and Jenny Jones was on, but the topic sucked. C’mon, why does every god damn channel have to have the same coverage on the same topic?! People get the point when they see it on one station. Don’t the reporters have anything better to do? So what if there was a robbery?! I’m sick of it!!!
—Gohar Galyan, Marshall HS
What a day! Don’t get me wrong, I think it royally sucked that ten officers were wounded, and two suspects were killed, but man! I felt like I was watching a movie. Here we have between 2-6 bank robbers who are handling the heist with such nonchalance, such suave, I mean they were cool about the whole situation. Then we have a Police Task Force of hundreds of cops running around trying to take these guys out. Hell, this was better than a movie!
From a car chase where a bank robber kept trying to carjack other people’s cars because his was falling apart, to a heroic rescue of an officer from his fellow officers, man what a day!!!
—Christian Dunlop, Glendale Adventist School
Life imitated art when that robbery took place. I sat glued to my TV set, watching every move the cops and bank robbers made. People were getting hurt and killed. It’s sad to think this actually can happen. Are we really safe? Can this happen to me? I can’t say for sure. All I know is you have to stay aware.
—Oscar Michel, Birmingham HS
On February 28, 1997, what began as a bank robbery ended in bloody horror. Gunmen in full body armor sprayed bullets on the streets of North Hollywood from illegal automatic AK-47’s. In the midst of a heated shoot out ten officers were injured. And, three innocent bystanders were casualties of this micro-war.
You had to have heard of it. The scene cluttered every television and radio station. Local newspapers were story-happy, and group discussions couldn’t be better. Everywhere, everyone, and everything imaginable absorbed the topic.
While coverage of an event to this level is necessary, it is not necessary for the media to take the coverage to an extreme. The media, believe or not, is an influential component of society. They played the role of a gatekeeper in this situation- influencing what is “news worthy” and for how long.
It’s upsetting that the media has abused this power. Every day, people commit acts of heroism, cowardice, philanthropy, and apathy. Yet, the national media fails to cover these acts. The O.J. Simpson trial and February’s bank robbery are prime examples of this exploitation. Is it fair to those who hold the heads of dying AIDS patients? That’s news too. And, is it fair that we are subjected to a warped view of the world filled only with atrocities and celebrities? No. The media has an obligation to its society to report the news… all of it.
—Deva Kyle and Nicole Perez, Monroe HS
I really don’t care much about the whole bank robbery except for the fact that the robbers were heavily armed and were covered from the neck down in body armor. The interesting thing for me is the fact that the day before in a separate robbery of a bar, an innocent man got shot by the Special Investigation Section of the L.A.P.D. He was running away from them, so they assumed he was one of the bad guys. It turns out that the man ran because he thought the police were after him for some outstanding tickets. People were calling for the S.I.S.’s heads. During yesterday’s events people could have used the S.I.S.’s help. To deal with these situations is their specialty. What was a drawn-out gun battle could have been a short confrontation if the S.I.S. was involved.
—Ricky Hicks, Loyola School
“Gunfire, Hostages and Terror.” This whole thing, if you ask me, was pretty cool. Not in the sense that people got killed, and hurt, but in the sense of how the robbers did it. I mean come on, how often do you see guys dress in black armor up to their necks with bullets across their chests and AK-47’s at hand? I mean, I know what they did was wrong but we all see killing and robbing all the time. Except they did it with such finesse and style, that was what made it so cool.
—Cindy Mojica, Burroughs Middle School
If we knew about the backgrounds of the robbers, what went wrong in their lives to make them decide to rob a bank, maybe I would’ve had more sympathy for them. This particular robbery reminded me of the movie, “Set It Off”, but in the movie I knew the reasons for why each one of the four characters robbed the banks and I cried for them in the end. The media made these men seem like inhuman, heartless terroists and influenced me to feel apathetic towards whether they lived or died.
—Chidimma Obioha, Beverly Hills HS”