On the morning of February 28, 1997, Officer James Zboravan and his partner arrived on the scene of a 211 (police code for robbery in progress) at the Bank of America on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood, California. The radio said there were two suspects, possibly armed with AK-47s.
Lights on and sirens blazing, Zboravan and his partner were on the scene within minutes. Other units would trickle in as officers took positions surrounding the bank. The next thing they knew, automatic weapons fire could be heard coming from the building.
What happened next would change the way police departments in Los Angeles and across the United States thought about firepower — and it all unfolded on live television.
For months before that February morning, Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Matasareanu carefully staked out their target. Phillips was a career criminal, unemployed, and spent most of his spare time at the gym. Matasareanu was a Romanian immigrant, overweight, and estranged from his wife and child. Before becoming a full-time bank robber, he began suffering from seizures. The two decided to team up.
Unknown to the police at the shootout, they were called the “High Incident Bandits” for the sheer amount of firepower they carried into the robberies. In 1993, they were pulled over for speeding in nearby Glendale. A search of the vehicle revealed two semi-automatic rifles and two pistols, along with more than 1,200 rounds of ammunition, smoke bombs, explosives, and body armor.
Phillips and Matasareanu spent 99 and 71 days in jail, respectively, following their arrest. By the time they were set to rob the North Hollywood Bank of America, the two had been criminal partners for years. They robbed armored cars and even two other Los Angeles-area branches of Bank of America.
Their armed robberies after leaving
