Facts About The North Hollywood Shootout, The Most Violent & Audacious Modern Bank Robbery

On February 28, 1997, Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu walked into a bank in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles and started the clock on 44 of the most violent minutes to ever occur in Southern California. What was meant to be a simple North Hollywood bank robbery became the catalyst for the militarization of American police forces and forever changed the face of daytime television. The facts about the 1997 North Hollywood shootout are all nearly unbelievable, from the number of rounds fired during the siege to the kind of weapons the assailants used. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu didn’t know it, but they would change the face of America forever with the final 44 minutes of their lives.

You may have read about bank robberies in the past, but few crimes compare to this one. Rather than asking a bank teller to put the money in a bag, the two men who destroyed a quiet town went on an all-out assault of the LAPD and did an untold amount of property damage before ending their lives in one of the most violent police altercations to ever occur on US soil. If you’ve heard about this insane moment in crime history but don’t know all the information, keep reading to get all of the armored North Hollywood shootout facts. 

It's already staggering that nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition were fired in just 44 minutes, but what takes this over the top is that 1,100 of those rounds were fired by just two people: the perpetrators, Larry Phillips, Jr., and Emil Mătăsăreanu. That means, from the beginning of the siege, no one stopped firing their weapons until Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were dead. With such an overwhelming number of shots fired, it's amazing to think that there were only two fatalities. 

If you're wondering why the LAPD seemed so woefully unprepared for this kind of assault, it's important to remember that, at the time of the North Hollywood shootout, Los Angeles was only five years out from the LA riots spurred by the Rodney King verdict. The police were dealing with the fallout of a major PR headache, and the last thing they needed was cops walking around with semi-automatic weapons. That all changed after the North Hollywood shootout. Seven months after the siege, the US Army gave the LAPD 600 surplus M-16s, beginning the militarization of police forces across the country that's still happening today. At the time, LAPD Commander Rick Dinse told CNN: "This was a clear indication that we needed that kind of firepower and we need it early on." 

This is just insane, but according to National Geographic's Situation Critical docuseries, at the beginning of the robbery, there were still a few people who were trying to get into the bank. Remember, Larry Phillips, Jr., and Emil Mătăsăreanu didn't walk into a bank and ask for money, they immediately fired into the ceiling, shot up a door, and destroyed a bunch of money by shooting into the vault; this wasn't a quiet crime scene. But Tracy Fisher didn't think anything of it when she was walking up to the bank and had to be grabbed by an officer who hid her behind a patrol car. She later told the documentary series: "My first instinct was, oh my God we are not in a very good place."

The two robbers, Larry Phillips, Jr., and Emil Mătăsăreanu, went into each of their robberies with a ridiculous amount of firepower, but for the North Hollywood shootout, they armed themselves to the teeth. It's obvious that they were heavily armed to intimidate whatever security they encountered, but if intimidation was all they had planned, then their arsenal feels superfluous. It's more likely that by strapping themselves with a semi-automatic HK-91 and several illegally converted weapons: two Norinco Type 56 S rifles, a fully automatic Norinco Type 56 S-1, a fully automatic Bushmaster (M16) XM15 Dissipator, and an additional 3,300 rounds of ammunition, they were hoping for the shootout in which they eventually perished.

According to the National Geographic documentary series Situation Critical: Hollywood Shootout, outside of their "standard" weapons, the bandits were also carrying a jam jar with gasoline meant to be used to destroy their weapons and car after the robbery. On top of all that, Phillips was wearing around 40 pounds of body armor that included a groin guard, military canteen pouches, and several pieces of homemade body armor that covered his shins, thighs, and forearms. While Mătăsăreanu forewent the heavy body armor, he did indulge himself in a metal trauma plate that protected his vital organs throughout the firefight. 

Remember, both of the robbers were wearing an extensive amount of body armor, so these ten body shots that actually penetrated the men is on top of the shots that were absorbed by their homemade vests and trauma plates. According to Situation Critical, Mătăsăreanu, who was wearing the trauma plate, successfully survived a double-tap from a SWAT officer's AR-15. The blow that made Phillips turn his weapon on himself was when he was struck in the hand, rendering him unable to continue firing with any of his automatic weapons. 

The first officers who arrived on the scene to face Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were only carrying their service weapons, which, at the time, were Berettas that weren't meant to penetrate body armor, and definitely weren't made for shooting long-distance. In order to go toe-to-toe with the bandits, they had to commandeer semi-automatic rifles from a local gun shop. Even though the borrowed weapons allowed the officers to fire across long distances, they still weren't able to match the firepower of the two robbers and had to wait for further reinforcements. 

In 1997, the American public hadn't yet been introduced to the concept of the 24-hour news cycle, but the media (and advertisers) knew that any kind of breaking news, especially if it was bad news, would draw ratings. This train of thought began with the Menendez brothers trial, was underscored by O.J.'s Bronco chase and subsequent trial, and was hammered home with the North Hollywood shootout. Most recordings of the shootout begin just after the robbery occurs, but before the actual firefight begins, meaning that home viewers were treated to some of the most brutal carnage that they would ever see. 

When you think of armed assaults that last for more than a few minutes, you likely think of disasters like the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, TX, or a military firefight that occurred overseas. The North Hollywood shootout lasted for forty-four terror-filled minutes on a regular morning in 1997, and there were only two guys behind the entire thing. In that time, the two men managed to destroy a bank, injure police and civilians, commit property damage to businesses they weren't even near, and hold off a hefty portion of the Los Angeles police force.  

There's really no other way that the North Hollywood shootout could have ended. If Emil Mătăsăreanu or Larry Phillips, Jr., actually believed that they were going to make it out of a shootout with the LAPD alive, or at the very least not mortally injured, then they were fooling themselves. By the end of the 44-minute siege, Phillips had turned a handgun on himself after sustaining multiple injuries but was shot in the spine moments before he could kill himself. Mătăsăreanu bled to death near a car he was using for cover while shouting at the police to shoot him in the head. 

The High Incident Bandits' plan went belly-up the moment it began, thanks to the fact that they were spotted by two officers who were on a morning patrol and thought there was something fishy about two grown men wearing body armor, ski masks, and the arsenal of a small army while entering a bank.

To make matters worse, there had been a change in the bank's delivery system and the vault contained significantly less money than two believed there would be. Instead of the $750,000 Larry Phillips, Jr., and Emil Mătăsăreanu had expected, the men were only able to make off with $303,305 and three dye packs which later went off, ruining the money they stole. According to a National Geographic docuseries, Critical Situation, Mătăsăreanu was so upset about this development that he fired nearly 100 rounds into the vault, destroying whatever money remained.