FRESNO, California (AP) – Police were investigating whether the same men who robbed a bank, took hostages and led a deadly chase and shootout carried out other recent bank heists in the same part of Northern California, including one earlier this year at the very same branch.
There were striking similarities between a late-January robbery at the Bank of the West and the one this week that left a hostage and two robbers dead, police said. In both cases, armed robbers made their getaway by stealing a bank employee’s car.
“Investigators have been looking at that January case really hard,” Officer Joe Silva said Saturday, though no one was injured or taken hostage in the earlier robbery.
Also Saturday, police said they are searching for the driver of a dark-colored Buick sedan seen on video dropping off the suspects before the Wednesday robbery. The car was found with no license plates abandoned in a neighborhood about a 10-minute drive from the bank.
Police said the driver dropped off three men, armed with three handguns and an AK-47, at a Bank of the West in Stockton. They took three women as hostages, including a customer and two employees, police said.