Police have a busy weekend in Long Beach

Maybe in another city, you’d have heard about the bank robbery Saturday before now. But we live in the sixth largest city in the state, one with a shooting downtown Friday night; a shooting in North Long Beach Saturday afternoon; and an officer-involved shooting early Sunday morning in central Long Beach.

So maybe it’s not surprising that I’m just getting around to telling you about the incident–or that The District Weekly is, I believe, the first media organization to cover it.

(There are two caveats here: first, I should have had this last night, but our website was cranky; and second, this wasn’t the most exciting bank robbery ever. Sorry.)

And now, without further ado: the bank robbery. It happened around 9:20 a.m.  Saturday morning, at Bank of America, 2000 E. Anaheim St.

I learned about it firsthand, around 10:30 a.m. Saturday when, after detouring around a traffic accident blocking Cherry Avenue at Ninth Street, I made it to the bank–only to be turned away by the bank security guard.

“We’re closed,” he said brusquely, after I’d waded through a line of maybe 25 people trying to use the ATM. “Can’t you see the sign and the police? There was a robbery.”

Actually, as I pointed out, the official bank placard said only that the bank was sorry to have to close–nothing about a robbery, or why all the police were inside.

It all made sense, though–and for a minute, I wondered if the traffic accident, where a police car was stationed near a new SUV with one wheel folded under it, was connected to the bank robbery. (It wasn’t.)

The situation unfolded, according to Long Beach police Public Information Officer Nancy Pratt, when a woman entered the bank and handed a female employee what Pratt described as a “demand note.”

“Of course it was a demand note for money,” Pratt said Monday afternoon. “The bank began escorting customers and employees out of the bank as we arrived on scene.”

Unlike some bank robberies, this one wound down quickly. Officers arrived, entered the bank, and were able to arrest the woman–identified as 40-year-old Kimberly Roberts of Long Beach–entirely without incident.

Police officers recovered two replica handguns from Roberts’ person, Pratt said–but the replica weapons apparently didn’t figure in the robbery, which could explain how bank employees were able to escort customers and themselves out while Roberts was still inside.

“It says we confiscated those from her ‘person,’ ” Pratt said, quoting the police report. “I would think that in this case, obviously if you have a suspect that’s armed, you’re going to do what they say. If she didn’t display any weapons right off-the-bat, they might have felt they had a little more leeway.”

Roberts was booked on suspicion of robbery, a felony, and is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail. She is due to be arraigned on the felony charge Tuesday afternoon in Long Beach Superior Court. And Long Beach police are rightfully relieved.

“We don’t like them at all ,” Pratt said, meaning bank robberies, “but if they have to happen that’s the way we like them to happen.”

And in case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s Tracy Manzer’s story on the city’s wild weekend, in this morning’s Press-Telegram; and more P-T coverage on the shooting early Sunday in the 1100 block of Chestnut Avenue.

Tags: California, Long Beach, Nancy Pratt, press telegram, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, Tracy Manzer