FBI Probes Death of Bank Robber

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the death of North Hollywood bank robber Emil Matasareanu, who--The Times found in a detailed reconstruction of the shootout’s aftermath--bled to death because of mistakes by police officers and violations of departmental policy by firefighters.

The probe, sources said, will focus on whether Matasareanu was deliberately denied medical care.

The U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division and criminal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles will review results of the investigation when it is complete, Michael J. Gennaco, an assistant federal prosecutor, said Thursday.

In an interview with The Times, Gennaco confirmed that agents were investigating allegations raised in the April 21 article, but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

“If the results of the investigation indicate a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes, appropriate action will be taken,” Gennaco wrote in a letter to Venice lawyer Stephen Yagman, who represents Matasareanu’s two small children in a wrongful death suit filed against the Los Angeles’ police and fire departments.

Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, who is defending the city in the case, said the officers and firefighters did nothing wrong during the incident.

“I will bet you that [the FBI] will find nothing,” he said. “They will not come up with any criminal charges.”

Matasareanu was one of two armed bank robbers who engaged police in a chilling televised gun battle early in 1997. He bled to death from gunshot wounds, The Times found, because no medical care was sent to him for more than hour after the gun battle ended and he had surrendered.

The Times investigation found that after the battle, a police officer erroneously told Fire Department rescuers that he thought Matasareanu was dead, and emergency medical technicians accepted that description without examining him.

After discovering he was alive, a rescuer attempted to approach Matasareanu, but a police officer told him to leave, the rescuer said in a statement to police investigators last year.

Fire Department dispatchers were not informed that Matasareanu was still alive, a Fire Department commander has said.

The rescuers took a citizen with minor glass and shrapnel wounds to the hospital, where he was treated and released in about an hour. They left Matasareanu lying in the street.

Shortly before Matasareanu died, a police officer called for an ambulance to transport him from the scene, but suggested that dispatchers “send one when it was available.”

By the time the ambulance arrived more than an hour after Matasareanu surrendered, he was dead, having succumbed to wounds that could have been treated with standard emergency care.

Gennaco, the federal prosecutor, said the investigation was prompted by questions raised in Times stories published shortly after the shootout. Based on those stories, in which witnesses questioned whether Matasareanu was allowed to die, Gennaco said he conferred with colleagues at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington, who in turn asked the FBI to open an investigation.

A federal law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said federal agents are also investigating the findings of The Times’ article, which he said “hinted at deliberate and intentional efforts to keep medical people away.”

Such investigations are approved, one federal law enforcement source said, only when the allegations, if proved true, would result in a criminal civil rights violation.

FBI spokesman John Hoos said the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department in Washington asked for the investigation in June 1997. He said it will be completed “in the very near future.”

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Although the investigation started nearly a year ago, key players and witnesses were not contacted by investigators until recently.

Vincent, the deputy city attorney, said he learned about the FBI investigation last week, when an agent called him “concerning records.” Vincent declined to say what he told the agent, but said the conversation lasted less than a minute.

Dora Lubensky, who lives about 50 feet from where Matasareanu died, said the FBI has not interviewed her. Lubensky observed the scene where Matasareanu lay and has been critical of police and fire department rescuers for not rendering aide to the robber.

Yagman said he didn’t learn about the investigation until Thursday, when he got Gennaco’s letter.

Hoos, the FBI spokesman, said he could not comment on how the agency conducts investigations.

Cmdr. Dave Kalish, spokesman for LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks, said he was not concerned about the FBI probe.

“We are confident that any independent review of the 40-minute gun battle that followed the North Hollywood bank robbery will result in the same conclusion made by all of us who witnessed it on television, that being that our officers, firefighters and other law enforcement personnel acted with extreme courage and professionalism,” Kalish read from a prepared statement.

“They truly distinguished themselves by conspicuous bravery and we are very proud of them.”