Bank robberies on the rise in Santa Monica this year
Santa Monica Police on Thursday arrested a man minutes after he allegedly robbed Wells Fargo Bank on Wilshire Boulevard at gunpoint.
It was the fifth bank robbery in Santa Monica this year, which is one more than all of 2002.
Calvin Tyrone Combs, a 36-year-old transient, was stopped at gunpoint by several SMPD officers at 21st Street and Wilshire Boulevard after he allegedly pointed a rifle at a Wells Fargo bank teller, demanded money and fled on foot with more than $1,000, sources said.
Witnesses said Combs walked into the bank, located on Chelsea Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, about 10:30 a.m. After he left, he allegedly dumped the rifle in a trash can and headed west on Wilshire.
SMPD officers, who were in the area, spotted Combs walking on the sidewalk. He was detained and witnesses and bank employees confirmed that Combs was the robber.
He was taken to the Santa Monica Jail, where he was booked for armed bank robbery and felony parole violation. The rifle was recovered from the trash can by SMPD officers.
An unidentified woman said she was sitting in her car parked on Wilshire Boulevard near the intersection with Chelsea Avenue just a few feet west of the bank, when she noticed a man walking down the street with a rifle. He approached her car, looked in the back seat but continued walking.
“I thought, ‘I’m in deep doo-doo,’” she said. “You think you panic when you see someone with a rifle but you don’t.”
On Feb. 19, US Bank on Fourth Street and Wilshire Boulevard was held up. SMPD officers also caught that suspect within minutes of the robbery.
A US Bank employee called police to report that the recently opened branch, located at 400 Wilshire, was being robbed, according to police.
Santa Monica Police officers arrived at the scene in less than two minutes and witnesses pointed out a suspect walking away from a parked car in the 1200 block of Court Four, an alley between Fourth and Fifth streets, police officers said.
Officers detained the man and witnesses later positively identified him as the suspect from the bank robbery, police said.
After the man was arrested, police searched his car and found a replica handgun in a jacket that witnesses told police had allegedly been used during the bank robbery. Officers also recovered a sack of money from the vehicle.
The other robberies occurred Jan. 14 at US Bank, 1401 Wilshire Blvd., Feb. 11 at First Federal Bank, 1630 Montana Ave., and April 11 at 2221 Santa Monica Blvd.
SMPD has arrested two of the suspects in the robberies, the others remain at large. Details of those robberies were not available from police sources on Thursday.
There were four bank robberies in 2002, FBI officials said. Bank robberies occurred on Sept. 30, Nov. 27 and Dec. 6 and Dec. 7.
Two men held up First Federal Bank on Montana Avenue last September. The suspects entered the bank at 17th Street and Montana Avenue and demanded money from the tellers, according to FBI officials. SMPD officers arrived on the scene first and detectives then called the Los Angeles’ FBI bureau, which handles all bank robberies on the westside.
No weapon was ever produced, according to witnesses, but it was classified as a takeover robbery, meaning the suspects told everyone in the bank to get down on the floor.
Sources said the two men held their hands near their sides and inside their pockets, implying that they had a gun. One source said a teller was knocked to the ground by one of the robbers.
Last November, Washington Mutual, located at 2701 Wilshire Boulevard was robbed, but apparently the suspect got anxious and fled through the rear of the bank before the teller could give him the cash.
The man who is believed to have robbed the branch was fatally shot by Las Vegas police on New Year’s Eve. Robert James Nusbaum, 34, is believed to be responsible for nearly a dozen bank robberies in Los Angeles and nine in Nevada.
He was shot by Las Vegas Metro Police on Dec. 31 after he and another man allegedly robbed Bank of America and opened fire on authorities when they were found hiding behind a nearby apartment complex, police said.
Nusbaum, known by the FBI as the “Do Jo Bandit” because he wore a karate-type shirt, fired the first shot at officers when he was spotted in the getaway car. Nusbaum struck one police officer in the leg. Two officers fired back and shot Nusbaum. He died of multiple gunshot wounds.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 18, 2003. Read the original PDF.