STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) – Cars and houses were riddled with bullets during a high-speed chase and hostages were thrown from a fleeing SUV after a bank robbery Wednesday that led to the deaths of a hostage and two robbers, police said.
The violence began at 2 p.m. when officers responded to a call of a robbery at a Bank of the West branch in north Stockton. Arriving officers spotted three men taking three female hostages from the bank at gunpoint. The robbers stole a bank employee’s SUV and led officers on the pursuit, Stockton police Officer Joe Silva said.
During the chase that lasted 45 minutes and spanned several miles, one of the hostages was thrown from the SUV and was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound, Silva said. The pursuit continued as the suspects fired with AK-47 style rifles from the SUV.
Fourteen police cars and an unknown number of homes along the robbers’ path were peppered with gunshots, Police Chief Eric Jones told a news conference late Wednesday.
“It was such a chaotic … fluid situation, really one of the most dangerous, tense situations that a police officer could go through,” Jones said.