Larry Phillips and Decebal Matasareanu met while working out at Gold’s Gym in Venice, Los Angeles, California. They had a mutual interest in both bodybuilding and firearms.
Phillips was a native-born American whose entire life had been characterized by crime. Up until they hit the big time he made ends meet via real estate scams and shoplifting.
Matasareanu, by contrast, hailed from Romania and was trained as an Electrical Engineer. However, his computer repair business just scraped by. Both men aspired to something more.
Their first known joint criminal enterprise was the 1993 robbery of an armored car in Littleton, Colorado. Unlike most conventional thieves, however, Phillips and Matasareanu rolled hot with AK rifles and improvised explosive devices. After a fortuitous traffic stop wherein the criminals were found to be in possession of two Kalashnikovs, two handguns, and a total of 2,800 rounds of ammunition the two felons served 100 days in jail.
These two guys left prison somewhat less than fully rehabilitated. In 1995 they robbed a Brinks armored car in LA, killing a guard named Herman Cook. Two LA-area banks later, these two gentlemen were $1.5 million richer. As is so often the case, however, they had a really tough time figuring out when to stop.
Going to War
Phillips and Matasareanu spent months reconnoitering the Bank of America branch on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in LA. They predicted when the bank should get its fresh cash shipment and schemed accordingly. They also studied their police scanner and estimated the Law Enforcement response time at eight minutes. Then on February 28, 1997, they girded up for battle.
They each wore body armor bodged together from commercial Aramid components covering their chests, groins, shins, thighs, and forearms. Matasareanu included a steel strike plate in his ensemble to protect his vital organs. They had each sewed watches into the backs of their gloves and took phenobarbital to calm their nerves. Their estimated police response time turned out to be catastrophically optimistic.
The Guns
Phillips and Matasareanu were serious gun nerds, and they had done their pre-mission prep thoroughly. Between the two of them, they wielded five long guns and a pair of pistols. Different accounts vary slightly in the details. However, as near as I could ascertain their two Norinco Type 56 S rifles were fitted with side-folding East German MPi KmS stocks. One of these guns included a vertical foregrip.
They had one Norinco Type 56 S-1 underfolder that had been illegally converted to full auto along with several Chinese-made 75 and 100-round drums. It is impossible to deploy an underfolding AK stock with a drum in place, but Larry Phillips still ran this weapon efficiently on full auto even with the stock folded.
Norinco makes superlative firearms. I have a Norinco underfolder AK I bought from a stack at a gun show back in 1985 for $325. The gun is beautifully executed with rich bluing, three magazines, and a bayonet.
The loadout included a Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator. The Dissipator featured standard M16A1 triangular handguards, a stubby16-inch barrel, and a collapsible stock along with a 100-round Beta C-mag. The Dissipator looks a little weird but illegally converted to full auto it was a formidable close combat tool. They also wielded a German HK91A3 with extended 30-round mags. These magazines were formed by welding two 20-round magazine bodies together.
Their 7.62x51mm HK91A3 was both powerful and reliable. It provided superior reach and penetration adequate to negate the effectiveness of a great deal of urban cover such as automobile components and modest trees. With more than a thousand rounds of ammunition on tap, these two maniacs strode calmly into the bank.
The Robbery
As they entered the bank looking like PLO Black September terrorists, a pair of nearby LAPD officers named Martin Perello and Loren Farrell fortuitously spotted them from their patrol car. The resulting radio call doomed the operation from the start.
Both men loosed bursts into the ceiling to discourage resistance. Phillips then shot his way through a supposedly bulletproof door to reach the tellers and the vault. This door was intended to withstand handgun rounds but didn’t fare so well against a full auto AK.
The men had expected around $750,000 but found the take to be markedly more meager. An infuriated Phillips loosed a full 75-round drum of 7.62x39mm into the bank vault, destroying much of the remaining cash. Now with $303,305 and three dye packs in their possession the two men egressed the building. The dye packs later exploded, ruining what money they did get. They had been in the bank for about seven minutes.
The Shootout
While Phillips and Matasareanu were working over the bank more and more LAPD units were staging outside thanks to the serendipitous report of the two passing cops. By the time they emerged the bank was surrounded and all corners were covered. The two men left the building by two separate entrances. Phillips spotted a police cruiser some 200 feet away and unlimbered his full-auto AK coldly and without hesitation.
For the next several minutes Phillips engaged the surrounding officers with controlled bursts of automatic fire, wounding seven LAPD patrolmen as well as three civilian bystanders. By now Phillips and Matasareanu were side by side, blasting at the cops and absorbing return fire from the police officers’ 9mm pistols and .38 revolvers. Lyrically outgunned, the cops sprinted into a nearby civilian gun shop and appropriated five AR15 rifles. Given California’s legendary gun laws were this to happen today the cops would obviously be hamstrung with bullet buttons and thumbhole stocks.
The two robbers also fired upon both LAPD and news helicopters. Officers tried and failed to secure headshots, but they did eventually connect with Phillips’ hand. The cops’ pistol rounds also struck the magazine and receiver of the HK91, rendering it inoperable.
Eighteen minutes after the first shot fired LAPD SWAT arrived in body armor, shorts, and athletic shoes. They had been in the middle of a run when the call came out, but they acted decisively, commandeering an armored truck and removing the injured to safety.
The End Game
Matasareanu started their getaway car while Phillips jogged alongside, all the while firing at cops as targets presented themselves. Once his HK 91 was disabled Phillips retrieved one of the other long guns and ran it until it jammed. Unable to clear the weapon given his injured hand, he drew his Beretta 92FS but had it shot out of his grip. Retrieving the weapon with his left hand he placed it underneath his chin and pulled the trigger. A police handgun round simultaneously struck him behind his armor and severed his spine.
Matasareanu fared briefly better. His windshield and tires shot out, Matasareanu carjacked a 1963 Jeep Gladiator and transferred his weapons into the new ride. However, unknown to him the truck had a separate kill switch, and he was unable to get it moving.
For another 2.5 minutes, Matasareanu engaged in a near-constant firefight with LAPD SWAT officers. He caught a double tap to the chest that stunned him momentarily but stopped on his armor. The SWAT cops with AR15’s then dropped down low and shot Matasareanu in the unprotected lower legs underneath his vehicle, finally taking him out of the fight.
Matasareanu was hit twenty times below the waist and occupied himself after he was subdued by telling the cops to kill him. It took some seventy minutes for EMT personnel to arrive as the fog of war sparked rumors of a third shooter. Matasareanu bled out from his leg wounds.
Ruminations
The superlative Michael Mann movie Heat debuted two years before the North Hollywood shootout. It has long been assumed that this gritty crime film about a well-armed paramilitary robbery crew inspired Matasareanu and Phillips. The final epic shootout scene in HEAT is rightfully hailed as one of the most compelling ever put on film, replete with masterful gun handling, proper magazine changes, and a reverberating soundtrack that puts you inside the fight.
The subsequent 2003 movie SWAT did a decent job of recreating the broad brush details of the North Hollywood robbery. While SWAT is a decent watch with some nice iron and solid tactics, it is no HEAT.
Pacino with his FNC-80, DeNiro and Kilmer with their fire-breathing Colt Model 733’s, and Sizemore running his Galil ARM set a standard for cinematic firepower yet to be bettered.
It was a legitimate miracle that none of the good guys died in the North Hollywood gunfight. When the smoke cleared the robbers had fired some 1,100 rounds, while the cops expended about 650. The aftermath of this shootout pushed American Law Enforcement to rethink long guns in squad cars and further militarize police tactical teams.
Seven months after the shootout the DOD gifted 600 selective-fire M16A1 rifles to the LAPD to equip each patrol sergeant. The political and cultural fallout from this gratuitous little war continues to this day.
I watched this as it went down, after I saw what was going down I kept yelling at the tv to shoot them in the head. If the police could shoot it wouldn’t have been a problem to stop this with their side arms but like most most police they can’t hit anything past 7 yards or they were just stupid, they didn’t need a rife to stop this>
My dad, former LE officer, said the exact same thing. He use to do local pistol marksman matches for extra cash. … helped that his service gun he used was a 1965 Python. 😉
I remember watching that and thinking to myself “where the F did they get that double drum for the HK!?!”
I knew about the Beta mags but have never seen one for the HK line yet. It wasn’t for several more years till I could find one commercially available.
The LAPD had to BORROW ar-15’s from a Local Gun Shop to fight the robbers. They were Under Prepared and Outgunned
You wanted to know other good “gun guy” movies. I can recommend Den of Thieves for a few good shootouts, and, much more so, 13 Hours.
On the AK’s, I remember reading and hearing that the BATF reported that the two ak’s were full auto rifles (MILITARY) bought in Mexico.
The AR’s were reported to have been converted.
The forward grip on the one ak has been modified by using an AK pistol grip, not a true Rom forward grip.
OBVIOUSLY, you don’t know about the Romanian AK74 that DID HAVE a bakelite pistol grip hanging under the front hand guard (molded as one unit from the factory that could very EASILY have been put on a regular AKM for more CONTROL WHILE IN “RAT-A-TAT-TAT MODE)…..best to research these things before typing crap on a page to let EVERYONE KNOW how UNEDUCATED you are!!!
You forgot to mention North Hollywood police officer, Martin Whitfield, who was injured in the shootout and sued the gun manufacturers because “gun makers should not have sold the guns to the public because the weapons pose such a high risk of killing or maiming people” Whitfield is not a friend of the 2nd Amendment and believes gun manufacturers are responsible for crimes that people commit using their products.
There was a ton of excellent training material for LE generated by this shootout. I remember receiving a 4-hour block of survival shooting techniques in an AOT class (advanced officer training) for our Department with information learned just from this incident! What really struck home with me was defining exactly what is ‘cover’ and what is ‘concealment’. When confronted by LAPD, the one shooter who was walking alongside that white sedan didn’t bother to shoot around the car when a black & white rolled up on him. He just let loose shooting at the officers right through the front windshield to the back window, striking the police car…lesson learned!!
The said part of this is that many of the lessons learned from the 1986 Miami FBI shootout apply to this one. There are noted differences, but impact of a highly trained person with a rifle will do horrible things to numerous LE with handguns that are not prepared for an all out fire fight.
Sadly, ‘those that do not study history, tend to repeat it’ …. 🙁
Great article!
Hey Brian…you’re a fool suggesting illegal immigrants are gonna cross border and shoot sh*t up…It’s probably gonna be another loser white deplorable from a right to work state with no decent gun legislation so any foolish inbred can buy a weapon at the local pawn shop with only a drivers license that goes and shoots up a school!…..wasn’t many mass shootings at the rate we have now …since ..you guessed it …2004……I’m sure you fools know it’s because everyone and their mother can easily get their hands on killing machines that we all love…humans are best at death and destruction!
Hey Tyler Kent…YES that’s exactly what guns were and are made for..KILLING ..to think anything else is delusional….that’s what humans have done best since the beginning of time…kill….ya’ll ever read Mark Twain’s essay…” the lowest animal”?…educational read!! Lol
At least the california kids were honest criminals…robbing banks,armored cars and shooting it out with cops! Unlike today’s losers in Texas and Florida and such shooting up schools and stores and bars killing innocent people for no reason..chivalry has all but left men these days…
I really enjoy your articles. Very informative and I look forward to them. Thank you Dr. Dabbs. To all the nay sayers who complain about Docs articles: Don’t read them if you don’t like them.
The toilet/gun offspring is actually a NY aberration. The CA baby looks more like the progeny of a gun and a mallard duck.
LMAO!!!!!
Why are you guys running articles that associate guns with murder and heinous crimes? Is that how you hope people will think of guns, as instruments of death and mayhem?
Hi Will Love reading your articles,keep ’em coming.As to “I don’t see how anybody can live in that place.” a note from long suffering California gun owners:The quote You can’t fight city hall for gun owners in Calif. is You can’t fight democracy as the recent incredibly stupid ammo laws put into law were approved by 62% of voters! With no help from the NRA we are screwed.There are MANY conservative frustrated gun owners in the state but are outnumbered by urban liberals.Just move? Easier said than done with family and financial oblations.What needs to be done is organize demonstrations like in West Virginia.If you think it can’t happen in your state just look what is happening there.ALL gun owners have to band together and fight these anti gun laws BEFORE they are made into law.
This is Going to happen again when A bunch of iligial imagrants get some fully automatic weapons across the border and make HELL RAIN DOWN ON ONE OF CALIFORNIANS SO CALLED SANCTUARY CITIES AS IF THERE HAD BEEN A LEGAL CARRY LAW IN THIS BLINDED GOVERERND RUN STATE THIS MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPEND NOW EVERY PLACE IN CALIFORNIA IS A SOFT TARGET !!!
You’re thinking of Virginia, not West Virginia. See VCDL.org.
Joe,
I read “lyrically” as a autocorrect typo for literally. The wonders of modern composting!
None of us means what we think it means, and prost is dead!
I live in New Mexico now. While in CA. I bought a POF 6.8. At a ABQ. PD Range no Rangemaster had ever seen a “Bullitt Button,” and had NO idea how to use it. Living in New Mexico now I can have the Bullitt Button removed and replaced. However I am afraid that this “operation” may have an effect on the operation of the Firearm.
My new-New Mexico Firearms do not have Bullitt Buttons, and I can get all the Thirty Round mags I need.
Hope you get rid of your hillary clone governor before she fundamentally changes your state into what you escaped!
Something I found interesting.
“Michael Mann insisted it be fired on semiauto as he rightfully felt that cops would not be willing to spray the cityscape indiscriminately as would criminals.”
He obviously wrote this before the modern police shootings of today. Like the 2019 shooting in Florida where the police used occupied civilian vehicles for cover while firing 200+ rounds at a UPS truck in a busy intersection killing 4 people including 2 innocent civilians.
No identification of target, just pray and spray with disregard to the final destination of the errant bullets.
“spray and spray’. No praying involved, as they no longer care (nor have to) who or what they hit, as they’re rarely held responsible.
IDF-training in action.
There is also a youtube video of a police officer shooting at a car on the highway with a full auto MP5 in which the officer could have hit people driving on the highway.
It was also a lucky break for LAPD PR. Public relations was at an all-time low from corruption and just about every stupid thing a police dept could do. This live TV shoot-out regained some respect for LAPD.
I was 45 and still living in So CA at the time of this and remember it well…plus have seen several times what video of the actual shootout is available…pretty incredible stuff. There were probably comparative if not more intense shootouts in the 20s and 30s, before video, but after that era nor since this incident, nothing that I’m aware of compares. Thanks for the tip on HEAT…I may have somehow overlooked it as WHITE HEAT, of Cagney fame…but will look it up and check it out. One key aspect of their advance prep that seems hard to figure was the research and calculation of average police response time…8 mins…although, if not for the two officers who happened to see them enter, and factoring the time anyone in the bank could get a call in or alarm pulled, it may have been close to accurate, if still on the slow side to a robbery in progress. For all their prep and research…if never enough nor smart enough…If they would have just looked around for a few more seconds and/or just a bit more carefully/thoroughly before making their presence known and entering, they may have succeeded once again. Until the next time.
Or had a wheelman, and 2-way radio.
According to the experts (at the FBI), the more significant gun fight occurred in Miami not LA, where 2 guys took on 14?? FBI agents in a gunfight after robbing several banks. Similar to this case, both crooks were killed.
Lyrically. You keep using this word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
i remember watching this unfold on tv wondering all the time why didn’t swat go for head shots, would have ended this in just a few rounds
The origins of those full auto weapons is a story in itself and involved the loss of two Southern California law enforcement officers prior to this shoot-out. It is a story that has been purposely or unwittingly left out. Also the gunstore that handed out the weapons to law enforcement in the shoot-out were later investigated after complaints from other FFL licensees for improper procedure. This led to discovery of money laundering for drug profits using firearms transactions involving several gunshops in two Southern California counties. They were all almost immediately put out of business. And this back story to the shoot-out and the origins of those fully auto weapons has never seen the light of day and I suspect it’s because it involved some heavy hitters and influential people. I wish I could tell you more or knew more but I’ve been stone walled at my attempts for further information.
Thank you for your service to our country.
Respectfully,
These 2 couldn’t have met a better end. It was my uncle, Herman Dwight Cook that was killed in the Brinks robbery. They killed him simply because they saw him as a substitute for a cop because he wore a uniform. That’s what it boiled down to… they both had such hatred for police that they basically instigated the gunfight to kill cops. Shame that Phillips was such a coward and killed himself instead of being left to bleed out slowly like his partner. At least there was SOME justice for my uncle; 2 dead worthless vermin.
Nice article, but a bit off on the notoriously byzantine California AR laws. California long ago banned thumbholes stocks when used on a semiauto rifle. No one know why. The also banned “assualt weapons,” and required instead that all semiauto rifles have fixed mags that required a tool to remove the mag. The Bullet Button was a work around–it requires the use of a “tool” (the tip of a bullet) to remove the mag.
Well, that wasn’t going to cut the mustard, so the Legislature outlawed Bullet Buttons and required that all rifles so equipped be registered as “Bullet Button assault weapons.”
But the definition of “assault weapon” still has several “loopholes,” namely the “featureless” AR. The basic requirements are a fixed stock, no pistol grip, and no “flash hider” (but brakes are still legal. Go figure.) As so configured, a locked mag is not required. The (pictured) Thordsen stock solved both the “pistol grip” and fixed stock issues with the rather odd looking stock seen. Thordsen has since released a much nicer looking stock that achieves the same objectives. And it is actually quite comfortable to shoot. Another example of California compliant rifles are the Ruger minis and the Springfield M1A.,
Alternately, one can retain a pistol grip if but only if there is a fixed mag that can be removed or recharged only if the action is opened (i.e., splitting the lower and upper receivers)–and of course there are a number of devices on the market that do just that. The purpose sought to be achieved is to slow the speed of a reload, thus, theoretically, giving people time to flee an active shooter.
California is still intent on removing EBRs (evil black rifles) from the state by hook or by crook. For example, none of the registered “assault weapons” can be transferred by any means to another resident of the State. But since ARs are still widely available, I would anticipate future legislative enactments to completely ban semiautomatic rifles. I think that the only thing holding them back is that they don’t want to ban M1Carbines and Garands.
Fuck em. They are evil commy scum. Gavin Dudes Cum can do what ever he wants. Good luck getting my AR.
They can’t do that! theres laws against that! I read somewhere that LE got large caliber hunting rifles from a nearby gun shop to try and stop them, I don’t recall hearing that they were used. With a million plus foreign nationals roaming around a mostly disarmed populace in calif., I’m surprised there isn’t more of that. The California compliant ar shown, likely was not owned by a cartel or gang member.
You might be confusing that with the Austin TX tower shooting. The cops acquires scoped hunting rifles from a gun store (though how or if they zeroed them is questionable).
Police appropriated AR15 and other auto loading rifles from a local Hollywood firearms dealer.