The Seal Beach and Garden Grove police departments are looking for the same bank robbery suspect. A man who claimed to be armed with an explosive device robbed the Chase Bank on Valley View Avenue in Garden Grove on Saturday, Sept. 22. The robbery and suspect photographs are similar to a Seal Beach bank robbery that occurred on April 6.
Last week, a man showed a Garden Grove Chase bank employee a device that appeared to be explosive. The suspect demanded money and forced the employee into the safe. After obtaining an undisclosed amount of money, the suspect left the bank through the north doors. The suspect told the employee that he left the bomb inside the bank. The employee no longer was able to see the device.
Police evacuated the bank and surrounding businesses. Deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad responded and conducted a search of the bank. No explosive device was located.
In Seal Beach, in Friday, April 6, at approximately 3:40 p.m., the Seal Beach Police Department received a report that a robbery had occurred at the U.S. Bank located at 13900 Seal Beach Blvd. in the Seal Beach Village Shopping Center next to Leisure World.
The suspect, described a white male, 25-35 years of age, thin build, wearing a beige baseball cap and a plaid jacket, entered the bank, brandished a handgun and placed what he said was a pipe bomb on a table inside the bank. The suspect fled the bank with the alleged pipe bomb and an undisclosed amount of US currency and was seen running from the bank through the parking lot.
Anyone with information may call Garden Grove Investigator Lord at (714) 741-5800 Seal Beach Detective Gary Krogman at (562) 799-4100, extension 1108, or e-mail GKrogman@sealbeachca.gov.
You may also call “Crime Stoppers” at (855) TIP-OCCS, or by visiting the website www.occrimestoppers.org.
