October 1, 1927
Los Angeles
Police will be working twelve hour shifts until the men who robbed the Merchant’s National Trust and Savings Bank, at Fifty-Seventh Street and South Broadway, of $5000 ($59,746.26 USD 2007) are in taken into custody.
During the brazen daylight robbery, six unmasked bandits threatened more than forty bank employees and depositors with shot-guns and revolvers.
Witnesses told officers that the gunmen drew up behind the bank in a large, expensive black sedan. Five men piled out of the car and walked to the front of the building, while the driver of the getaway car pulled around and parked right in front of the bank doors. 
Waving a shotgun, the first crook entered the bank. He made no attempt to halt several terrified bank patrons as they ran screaming from the bank seeking safety.
One of the men stood lookout on the sidewalk, while the remaining thieves rushed into the bank lobby brandishing their weapons and shouting at everyone to hold up their hands. Bank manager R.C. Elliott was struck by one of the gunmen and forced to lie on the floor. The other employees were unmolested, and the customers were not robbed. Two of the crooks jumped behind the counter and forced the tellers to lie on the floor. The men then pointed their weapons at the prone employees, and proceeded to empty the cash drawers. Having made their withdrawal, the gang fled to the waiting automobile which then careened north down Broadway at a high rate of speed.
One of the tellers, W. Ord, raced to his car and followed the fleeing bandits several blocks before losing sight of them in traffic at Forty-Sixth Street and South Broadway. He managed to obtain the license number of the car, which had been reported as stolen only a few nights ago.
Police have concluded from the gang’s modus operandi that they are from the east, and not among the locals currently wreaking havoc in a city-wide crime wave. The law won’t rest until the miscreants are brought to justice. So…if the bad guys are here on vacation, they’d better pick up a Hollywood snow globe and a crate of oranges, and head for home.
