SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Harrowing Story of the North Hollywood Shootout

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: The Harrowing Story of the North Hollywood Shootout

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Episode Date: September 26, 2025
Theme: A deep dive into the infamous 1997 North Hollywood Shootout, covering the criminals’ backgrounds, the shocking shootout’s unfolding, its consequences for policing, and its ongoing cultural resonance.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck examine the true crime story of the North Hollywood Shootout—a violent bank robbery and unprecedented firefight between two heavily armed men and Los Angeles police in 1997. They trace the backgrounds and psychology of the perpetrators, detail the minute-by-minute escalation, and explore the profound impact the event had on police tactics and public perceptions.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

Heist Defined—and Not Your Average Heist

• Opening Context (01:09-03:33):
  • The hosts clarify why this event, though technically a "heist," stands apart due to its sheer brutality and lack of subtlety.
  • Josh: “Most of the time, successful. This is a little more brute firepower than any other heist or most other heists. So that’s why it kind of disqualifies it.” (02:24)
  • They note the public’s difficulty distinguishing between cinematic action and real-life horror.

Introducing the Shooters: Larry Phillips & Emil Matasaranu

• Backgrounds & Dynamics (04:18-07:46):

  • Larry Phillips Jr. (26, the manipulator) and Emil Matasaranu (30, the follower) met as bodybuilding enthusiasts.
  • Phillips: A criminal since his 20s, inspired by gangster films (notably "Heat").
  • Matasaranu: A troubled Romanian immigrant, bullied in youth and later linked to a failing, abusive care home run with his mother.
  • “Even though Emil was older, Larry was the one who called the shots. He was roundly described by family members as manipulative, controlling.” (04:58)

• Phillips’ Tormented Upbringing (06:53-07:46):

  • Raised under an alias (his father was a fugitive), witnessed his father’s violent arrest, which seeded lifelong suspicion of police.

• Matasaranu’s Troubled Home (07:46-11:32):

  • Family operated a substandard care home, later exposed for mistreatment and Social Security fraud.
  • “They found a… 44-year-old mentally disabled woman locked in a room with no windows, with no food or water.” (10:00)

The Crime Spree Before North Hollywood

• Previous Robberies (15:19-21:30):
  • A 1993 police stop discovered a "bank robbery kit" in their trunk, but charges were minimal, and their weapons were astonishingly returned post-sentence.
    • "They pled down to a misdemeanor weapons charge and about four months in county jail each." (16:16)
  • Dubbed the "High Incident Bandits," they executed high-reward, militarized bank jobs, stealing ~$1.3–1.7 million.
  • “At the time... the average bank robbery in the United States yielded the robbers about $3,000.” (19:32)
  • Their methods: careful planning to hit on paydays, aggressive violence (including murder of a Brinks guard).

February 28, 1997: Day of the North Hollywood Shootout

The Robbery Itself

• Setting the Scene (22:24-29:51):

  • Robbers clad in near-full body armor—one having sewn his own suit.
  • “They are covered head to toe in tactical gear... Larry Phillips is covered from neck to ankle in body armor.” (24:21)
  • They fire into the air upon entry; police, having spotted them immediately, are already coordinating outside.

• Robbers' Mindset (26:08):

  • Although not typical drug users, they took phenobarbital to calm nerves.
  • Displayed movie-style cruelty and aggression—yelling threats (“…if [the mothers] didn’t shut their kids up, they were gonna kill their kids,” (26:58)), firing wildly.

• Botched Score & Quick Escalation (27:55-29:51):

  • Failure to access ATM funds and Brinks cash drop. Take is roughly $300,000 and soon ruined by dye packs as they exit to swarmed police.
  • Host note: “All he double hockey sticks broke loose.” (29:23)

The 44-Minute Shootout

• War Zone (31:34-35:50):

  • Over 300 police converge; media helicopters capture the chaos live.
  • Police firearms are outmatched by robbers’ armor and illegal steel-core ammunition: "They were finding their own guns, were having basically just pinging... because [the robbers] were wearing so much body armor." (35:16)
  • Police resort to raiding a nearby gun store for higher-caliber weapons—a testament to their initial lack of preparedness.
  • “If there’s any available units, go to the gun store down the street and get everything you can.” (35:50)

• Tactical and Civilian Chaos (37:17-43:09):

  • Officers and civilians are pinned down or shot. Only quick-thinking bystanders, like Dentist Dr. Jorge Montes, save wounded officers’ lives.
  • Still, LA streets are improperly cordoned—civilians unwittingly drive through active fire zones.

• Climax & Deaths (42:14-45:44):

  • Phillips is shot multiple times, attempts suicide, and dies; Matasaranu is shot 28 times in the legs.
  • The sole fatalities: the two robbers.

• Aftermath Stats:

  • 12 officers shot; 8 civilians wounded—none fatally.
  • “I think 17 or 1800 rounds were fired in this 44 minute firefight, and only two people died. The bank robbers.” (46:31)

Controversy: Police Letting a Suspect Die

• Matasaranu’s Death (46:31-47:39):
  • After surrendering, Matasaranu is denied medical aid and bleeds out. Scrutiny follows, but lawsuits achieve no remedy.
  • “Regardless of whether this guy was a bank robber, you still have an obligation to treat an injured human on the ground.” (47:07)

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Consequences & Legacies

The Militarization of Police

• Direct Impact (48:20-49:47):

  • Following the shootout, police forces nationwide began acquiring military-grade weaponry through the Defense Department's 1033 program.
  • “That’s had all sorts of knock on effects, including… an increase in death during police shootings... the push has been to let’s arm the cops equally.” (49:37)

• Other Outcomes:

  • PTSD counseling becomes common for police officers after traumatic incidents. (49:47-50:00)

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Cultural References & Media Adaptations

• Inspiration from and for Pop Culture:
  • Robbers mirrored movie heists, especially Heat.
  • The event itself inspired Grand Theft Auto 5’s Paleto Score heist, the TV movie 44 Minutes, and countless documentaries.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You have to remind yourself from time to time, like, these are like really, really bad guys... you have to... turn off that entertainment part... At least I did. I had trouble doing it during research...” – Josh Clark (03:00)
• “They just gave them back their assault rifles and their handguns and probably their ski masks, everything they needed to go rob banks. And that’s exactly what they did with that stuff.” – Josh Clark (17:16)
• “It looked like Vietnam out there in North Hollywood.” – Chuck Bryant (33:59)
• “In the end, Phillips was shot 11 times. He’s walking down this side street... a cop shoots his hand. Like, shoots the gun out of his hand...” – Chuck Bryant (42:14)
• “17 or 1800 rounds were fired in this 44 minute firefight, and only two people died. The bank robbers.” – Josh Clark (46:31)
• “Rather than people saying, let's reduce the public's access to things like assault rifles... the push has been to let's arm the cops equally...” – Josh Clark (49:37)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:09 | Introduction; why this heist matters | | 04:13 | Backgrounds of Phillips & Matasaranu | | 15:19 | Details of previous robberies and DA’s failures | | 22:24 | The setup for the Bank of America robbery | | 24:21 | Description of robbers’ body armor | | 26:08 | Phenobarbital and methods inside the bank | | 31:34 | Start of the shootout and police response | | 35:50 | Cops run to a gun store for better weapons | | 42:14 | Phillips shot and killed; events leading up to climax | | 46:31 | Only deaths: the robbers; extraordinary number of rounds fired | | 48:20 | Police militarization and PTSD counseling post-shootout |

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Conclusion

Josh and Chuck unflinchingly dissect the North Hollywood Shootout as a turning point in American crime and law enforcement. Through a blend of dry wit and reverence for the facts, they highlight the event’s complex causes, the human cost, and its seismic ripple through pop culture and policing. For listeners, it’s both a cautionary tale and a fascinating glimpse into a day when real-life violence exceeded Hollywood’s wildest imagination.

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For further information:

• Documentaries, TV dramatizations, and true crime articles cited throughout the episode are recommended for those interested in deeper exploration of this stunning moment in Los Angeles—and American—history.

Transcript

[Podcast Advertiser]

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[Josh Clark]

This one was mentioned in our recent episode on the militarization of the police because the bandits who robbed a bank in Los Angeles were so heavily armed to the teeth that they outgunned the cops, which led to police carrying assault rifles to protect themselves from another event like this. Except this robbery was so off the rails, you can kind of imagine there might not ever be one like it again. Away we go.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and we're just a. Well, Jerry's not here, actually, now that I mentioned it, that was just force of habit, wasn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Ghost of Jerry.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, she's not.

[Chuck Bryant]

She's still with us, though.

[Josh Clark]

She's driving the getaway car.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she's not that kind of ghost.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no, no, no. She's the kind of ghost that drives a getaway car.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So I mentioned that, though, Chuck, because it's apropos of the heist episode we're about to talk about, which I guess this would qualify as a heist, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I mean, heck, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Well, usually to me, heists are a little more intricate. Most of the time, successful. This is a little more brute firepower than. Than any other heist or most other heists. So that's why it kind of disqualifies it, in my opinion.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

That's my essay on heists.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't even know what the definition of heist is.

[Josh Clark]

I just gave it to you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Apparently it's a robbery. So.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, sure. I mean, of course it's a robbery, but. And this qualifies as a robbery. It's just, it's its own unique thing for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh man. Big time.

[Josh Clark]

And you know, as you're reading this, it's so theatrical. It's so just totally off the chain. Nuts. That this actually happened in real life. You have to remind yourself from time to time, like, these are like really, really bad guys. And what they were doing was beyond reprehensible. It's just we're so trained to get sucked into that kind of like action in the movies that when it happens in real life, you have to like kind of turn off that entertainment part of it and bring yourself back to reality sometimes. At least I did. I had trouble doing it during research a few times.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, for sure. And we're talking about the, the North Hollywood shootout is what it's known a lot as the Battle of North Hollywood sometimes. And this is on February 28th in 1997, when two dudes armed to the hilt with assault rifles, like anything you can think of. And this is as we'll see, a time when. And this is kind of one of the big sort of, I guess interesting and scary parts about this. This is when cops, like people could be more out armed than the police that are trying to stop them.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's what happened the day that they engaged when North Hollywood became a war zone for a little while.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And as a matter of fact, this episode, this event led directly to the militarization of police forces. As we see, these two guys basically pressed that issue because. Yeah, the, the, the Los Angeles Police Department was outgunned, out, armed and, but definitely not outnumbered. They, they outnumbered the robbers, but they were still getting pinned down and they were having no luck with anything. Well, I don't want to give too much away. Let's just start at the beginning because we're talking about two dudes, a 26 year old, this is back in 97, named Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. And there was a 30 year old who he was friends with named Emil Matasaranu. And even though Emil was older, Larry was the one who called the shots. He was roundly described by family members as manipulative, controlling.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And he had Emile under his thumb. Emile was described by his family members later as a follower. So even though he was a little older, he listened to what Emile told him to do, not Just in. In their partnership as, like, criminals, but in. In life, too. I read somewhere that Emile got married because Larry told him he should and that he shouldn't marry an American girl. So Emil went to Romania and got himself a Romanian bribe because he was a Romanian immigrant. That level of control is apparently what they were engaged in.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally. Previous to their meeting, they met each other. They were bodybuilders. Like, not professionally, but just bodybuilding guys at Gold's Gym in Venice beach in 1989. And just prior to this is when Phillips started his life of crime. Started kind of small, I guess, like most criminals. Just a heist of $400 from a Sears in Southern California and then graduated to burglary, real estate fraud, stuff like that. Apparently was sort of enamored of, like, Scarface and ultimately the movie Heat. So if this shootout sounds familiar, it sounds a lot like the one from Heat. It's because they seem to have been inspired by that movie for sure, but loved not only just the gangsters in movies, but also the white collar criminals. He would apparently, like, park in front of rich people's houses and just sort of fantasize about that life and wanted money. Like he. You know, in the end, this whole thing was about money and, like, the thrill of it all. Largely because of Phillips.

[Josh Clark]

Right, for sure. And Phillips was. He kind of had the odds stacked against him in succeeding in a normal 9 to 5 life because of the family he was born into. His father, Larry Eugene Phillips Sr. Who would later speak about his son in glowing terms after this. He was actually an escapee from a prison in Colorado when Larry Jr. Was born. So Larry Jr. Was born into an alias. His last name was false. Worfle. That's how he was born. And on his sixth birthday, apparently the FBI came in with guns drawn to capture his dad. And that helped set up what was referred to as basically a lifelong hatred of the police and by extension, the kind of normal society the police were charged with defending.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, as for Maticerano, he was a Romanian immigrant, came into the country when he was about 11 in 1977, was naturalized in 88. And his mom, we'll talk about her a little bit. Her name was Valerie Nicolescu.

[Josh Clark]

I think that definitely gets it across. Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nicolescu. She says that he was bullied when he was a kid. He became a computer and video game nerd. He ended up going to Devry Institute of Technology when he was 19. Sorry. He got his degree when he was 19. But his neighbors also said things like, this guy was bad News, he threatened one of the neighbors with a chainsaw because their dog came on his property. And their family also had another sort of disturbing secret, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they had a family business. Emil and his mom Valerie had basically a residential care center out of their home for people with disabilities, usually cognitive disabilities or mental health issues. And they were set up as a legitimate care institute. No, that's not the word, I guess a care home.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The problem is, is they were not a good care home by pretty much any standard. They were caught multiple times doing, or they were accused multiple times of mistreating the people. One of their residents was left in the hospital, just kind of abandoned, ditched there. There was supposedly some allegations that Emil had been abusive toward at least one of the patients there and he was not allowed to come back into the house anymore, which is a problem because this is the family house. And eventually they got shut down for fire codes. And later on we'll see. It even got worse after the, the heist happened and all the news came out and the police and the, the press started looking into that family and their family business. Just suffice to say, like, his mom doesn't appear to have been a very good person herself from. Just based on the allegations of how she treated the people who were under her care.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was pretty just. I mean, this is one of the more disturbing parts of this whole story actually, and it's kind of a sidebar, which is after the shootout, they found a. They searched her like a commercial building that she owned in Pasadena and found a 44 year old mentally disabled woman locked in a room with no windows, with no food or water. And then later it turns out that she was charged for that initially, which was, I mean, I guess just sort of like a neglect charge. She was sentenced to 10 months. But then later in 2002, I found an article in the LA Times where, because I was like, why would she do this? It was Social Security fraud. She was collecting checks in her name. And her. And this other woman later on she, you know, it was, it was basically welfare and Social Security fraud. So she got pinched for that in 2002.

[Josh Clark]

And if you read kind of some of the contemporary articles from 1997, right after the heist, she's kind of portrayed by the press as like the things she says about herself or her background, the press won't, don't really take on face value.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like she's. She said that she was an opera singer from the state Opera in Romania who defected in 1977 and they use the words like claim. When somebody's described as claiming something about their own personal history, that's a signal from the press that this is probably not a trustworthy person.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely. She would also say after this whole shootout went down with her son that she was like he was depressed, his wife had left him and taken his kid. And I basically think this was a suicide mission for him. So whether or not that was true, who knows? That's what she claimed.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So these are the guys who found each other in 1989 at Gold's Gym and became really good friends. And one of the things in addition to bodybuilding that they had in common was a real pronounced love of guns. And not just any guns, high powered assault rifles in particular. And apparently Larry Phillips had a line somewhere on steel cased ammunition. He could get it from Russia. Highly illegal, but apparently people weren't paying attention. And I saw there was this British National Geographic little hour long documentary on this called Situation Critical which reminded me of that Seinfeld movie, Prognosis Negative.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally.

[Josh Clark]

But they said that he, he managed to import rounds of this really illegal, like incredibly powerful steel lined ammunition by the thousands of rounds. So not only did they have really high powered assault rifles, they had immeasurably higher powered shells to put in those assault rifles, which made them extremely dangerous people.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely. And as we'll see, and maybe we should take a break here. These two guys were doing a lot of really dangerous criming before that 97 shootout.

[Josh Clark]

Let's take that break.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right.

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so before we broke, I hinted around that these guys were criming around previous to the 1997 shootout where everything ended. And that is very much true. In 1993, they were pulled over in a rental car in Glendale. And cops said, all right, well, let me take a look in the trunk. And they went, oh, you've got two 9 millimeter handguns, 245 handguns, two Kalashnikovs, six smoke grenades, two homemade bombs, three machine guns, two bulletproof vests, one gas mask, six holsters wigs, ski masks, two police radio scanners, a stopwatch, and close to 3,000 rounds of ammo. And they said, we're just going to the shooting range, man. And, you know, sometimes we like to wear wigs or ski masks.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or listen to what the cops are doing or time each other.

[Josh Clark]

Right. We're big fans of the police.

[Chuck Bryant]

Obviously, that all is, you know, to an outsider, obvious bs. But shockingly, the DA said, you know, we don't have enough evidence to convict them of conspiracy to commit robbery. And they pled down to a misdemeanor weapons charge and about four months in county jail each.

[Josh Clark]

It gets even worse than that. That was 1993, okay? They were not only led off with basically a slap on the wrist, what they had in their trunk was described by other people later on as a. A bank robbery kit. That's everything you needed to rob a bank right there. And it was so painfully obvious that's what that was. That. But they still stick up note, right? No, there wasn't anything like that. They hadn't gotten to that point. But the, the craziest part of this whole thing, even crazier that they only got four months for these weapons. The DA and the judge agreed to give them their weapons back after they got out of jail. So they were rearmed on ostensibly so that they could sell the weapons to pay for their legal costs. But no one followed up to make sure they did sell the weapons. They just gave them back their assault rifles and their handguns and probably their ski masks, everything they needed to go rob banks. And that's exactly what they did with that stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

And this was Los Angeles, for goodness sakes.

[Josh Clark]

I know, it's crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

So later on, this is after the, you know, the final shootout that we're leading up to. But later on, there was obviously all kinds of investigations and stuff, and they learned that these two guys were in fact, what were known as the High Incident Bandits. These two dudes that robbed. Well, it was, technically it was two incidences, but three banks. Cause they hit two banks at once in 95, they robbed a. Well, not a bank, but they robbed a Brinks truck in front of a Bank of America in the Valley and they killed a guy, they killed the driver. They opened up fire on these dudes.

[Josh Clark]

Without warning, without a put your hands. They just came out of nowhere and just started firing on them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah, which we'll see as an obvious precedent. And then in 1996, they robbed two bank of Americas, one of which was the one that they had previously robbed the armored car in front of and killed that guy. And it was the same type of deal. They had these automatic rifles. They were screaming that they're gonna kill you. They had body armor, ski masks, sunglasses. They took their time as far as bank robberies go by being in these banks for six minutes and eight minutes.

[Josh Clark]

That's very long.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is, that's a long time for a bank robbery. I tried to get out of there in less than three.

[Josh Clark]

Well yeah, that's, you know, that's what everybody does.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's our goal. But they made off, I mean these guys had a lot of money. They made off with between 1.3 and 1.7 million bucks combined from these two.

[Josh Clark]

Heists, let alone whatever they got from the Brinks robbery.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah, absolutely. And they were, you know, they were well known. They were the high incidence bandits. The FBI was, you know, actively tracking them and also had a theory that they're not alone. They're part of like a larger crime ring or terror string that's funding them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and like that's not only funding them with arms, but the bank robberies are meant to fund some sort of like right wing paramilitary group or terrorist organization or something. That was the point, that was the premise they were going on. Because these guys were so incredibly well armed. And just for, just for context too, $1.7 million for two bank robberies is a eye popping amount of money. Yeah, it's up there in like the top probably 50 bank robberies of, in United States history. Like those are really big hauls I saw at the time. Back in 1991, the average bank robbery in the United States yielded the robbers about $3,000. Robbing a bank, the, the, the takes were usually so paltry that it wasn't worth the bank's money to invest in other protections like screens that go up really quick between the tellers and the bank robbers. It wasn't worth them installing those in banks because they the robbers rarely got away with more than a few thousand dollars. So that was a huge, huge score for almost $2 million between just two bank robberies for these guys.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I don't think murder usually occurs at those bank robberies too.

[Josh Clark]

Supposedly. I can't remember the number. I think it was like 16 people died in bank robberies over like, I think 85 to 95 or something like that. And 12 of them were the bank robbery. It was a statistic somewhat like that. And I think 85% of bank robbers get caught. It's a really high risk, usually low reward crime. But if you do it like these guys did, armed to the teeth. And the other reason that their yields were so big, they scouted out the banks and they knew when the bank was going to get some big delivery of cash, usually it was a payday or something like that, that that's why their robberies paid off so well. They had done their homework ahead of time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that's how they do it in the movies. And apparently these guys were inspired by movies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I guess everybody else in real life doesn't do it like the movies.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So they were, you know, they were living kind of high on the hog for a little while. They had a lot of money. Phillips himself, he was the one that really sort of idolized, you know, being wealthy and all that stuff. He like bought fancy cars, he bought Rolexes. I think Mattis Serrano rented a big house for his family. So, you know, I think looking at the timeline, one was in June of 95, one was almost a year later in 96. So. And then this final one was in February 97. They weren't, you know, they weren't doing this. It's hard to say they were being smart about it because they were so brazen, but it seems like they were doing this as like, all right, well, here's our annual salary and then we'll go out and do it again in about a year, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. No, they were, they were, it was like their new job and their new hobby and their new life, I guess from what I understand. Right. So on the day of the, the robbery, their third heist, February 28, 1997, a Friday. And since it's the end of the month, a payday, they had targeted a Bank of America. It wasn't one they had hit before.

[Chuck Bryant]

But for some reason hated bank of America.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they really. I, and I kind of get why, but being a former bank of America account holder myself, but they hit one in North Hollywood. It was on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Are you familiar with this area?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, of course.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so you knew. Were you in LA at the time?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I didn't. Oh, wow. This is kind of right before that, though. I didn't move to LA till 2000.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And North Hollywood, just for reference, is, you know, Hollywood central. Hollywood is kind of right in the middle of sort of central la, and then just over the mountains as you go into the valley. That's where North Hollywood is.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And that's where Hank, the Chechnyan gangster in the HBO show Barry, is from. That's why they call him noho.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hank, I need to do Barry.

[Josh Clark]

You do. It's one of those shows that gets insanely off the rails, and yet they still manage to make it work. It's really good.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, I watched a little bit of it years ago when it first started and just got distracted and never got back around to it. But I love everyone in that show.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think you should give it another shot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. All right, I'll bury up soon.

[Josh Clark]

It's weird, though. It's deceptively gritty. It's a comedy through and through, and it's just bizarre and all that. But there's. If you really kind of get into, like, the. The violence, the meat of it, it's pretty hardcore. It's a crazy show. It's hard to pin down, but it's worth seeing.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, I'll follow up.

[Josh Clark]

So. Friday, February 28, 1997. Larry Phillips and Emil Matasarano walk into a Bank of America, and they are covered head to toe in tactical gear, ski masks. It turns out Larry Phillips is covered from neck to ankle in body armor. Yeah, that he helped. He apparently sewed it himself, and it was really effective. Emil Matasaranu has a. A trauma plate, Basically, a like, a bulletproof plate covering his chest and his vital organs. And they walk in, and apparently the first thing they did was started firing into the air from their AK47s. And you would think that that would capture the attention of the police, but that's a moot point because the police watched them walk into the bank from the first moment this started.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, I mean, you can do all the planning in the world as a bank robber, but you can never count or discount bad luck for them, good luck for everyone else.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

But literally, there was a police cruiser that were, like, sitting there and watched two guys walk into this bank armed like this. And I'm sure they were like, what the boop? And immediately called. This is at 9:17. And they immediately called for backup, obviously. And I think once they saw and heard the shots and everything, they all immediately knew that these were the High Incident bandits.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And for those fans of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre and Ice Cube and NWA, you're well aware that what the police called in was a 2 11, an armed robbery in progress.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's good.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the things, a little detail that kind of emerged later on. Apparently Larry Phillips and Emil were not drug users whatsoever in any way, shape or form, but apparently they had taken phenobarbital just before the bank robbery to basically calm their nerves. They were the kind of bank robbers that you see in the movies, but. But that don't actually exist in real life. These guys existed in real life. They would knock down old ladies and put guns in their faces. They would tell moms that if they didn't shut their kids up, they were gonna kill their kids. They fired wildly into the air. They fired wildly into the bank. They just shot everything up everywhere. They were really abusive. They were really tough. They were really scary. And they were also really on point as far as, like, knowing where the money is, knowing who would have access to the money, and just making this whole thing work. They had also figured out that they had about eight minutes before the average response time. They hadn't noticed the cops watching them walk in. And so they had timer stopwatches on during this whole eight minute robbery.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, which is what they had in the trunk when the cops pulled them over four years earlier. Yeah, the stopwatch. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, they had this thing planned out, but they also didn't know certain things. Like, they asked the bank manager to open up the ATMs, and he's like, I can't open the ATMs. Like, I literally can't do that. So he tried to shoot them open, which did nothing to get into the atm. But of course, it, you know, bullets ricocheted everywhere and injured the bank manager. They also, you know, would shoot, I think one of them, Phillips, wasn't it, who literally shot into a safe and like, shot up a lot of the money that they could have gotten. Ruining that.

[Josh Clark]

Out of anger, they learned that the Brink's truck that was supposed to be delivering hundreds and hundreds, about three quarters of a million dollars by their estimate, was running late or had been rescheduled to throw off bank robberies. And out of anger, Emil just shot into a safe and. And basically just ruined a bunch of cash that they could have taken.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. There was also a cell phone on the scene, which is not the most common thing in 1997 for sure, but it was LA. And they locked a bunch of the. There were about 30 bystanders, or you know, just people doing bank business. They separated them out from the tellers and put them in a vault and shut the door. And one of the. I believe one of the women inside had a cell phone. And I'm not sure how much it helped, but she was at least able to be in touch with the cops, sort of describing what she was hearing while all this was going on.

[Josh Clark]

Right. This is at a time before people knew what LOL meant. And one of the cops she was texting with was like, lol, meaning lots of love. But she didn't take it that way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Lots of love. I thought it was laugh out loud.

[Josh Clark]

Right. That's what it means. The cop didn't know that. He thought he was saying like, hang in there, lol.

[Chuck Bryant]

I got you. I gotcha. Okay, I missed. I'm a little sick today.

[Josh Clark]

That's all right. I stole that joke from Family Guy. Anyway.

[Chuck Bryant]

In the end though, they did get a pretty good take. They got about $300,000 worth of cash. And then I guess we should probably take a break here. But then they exited the bank and all he double hockey sticks broke loose. Yeah.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Bring the boom XBoom foreign.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, it's about 9:25, I believe eight minutes has passed. The timer's Going off on their stopwatches. And Emil Matasaranu and Larry Phillips are now planning on leaving the bank. They have a duffel bag with about 300 grand in cash. And supposedly right when they walk out the door, the dye packs in the bag go off and completely ruined the cash. So the cash that they thought was going to be there wasn't there. The cash that they did get was now completely ruined forever because of the die packs. And they come out and realize that the cops have them surrounded, that this eight minute response time thing doesn't count when the cops watch you walk into the bank with ski masks and AK47s.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, like what kind of surrounded are we talking about here?

[Josh Clark]

We're talking about surrounded on every side with police helicopters hovering overhead. That's what they walked out of the bank into.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In the end, there would be more than 300 cops from five different agencies that were engaged in the shootout. So 300 against two. That gives you a little insight into just how much more heavily armed these guys were that it lasted this long. But they walked out to that scene and immediately turned North Hollywood into a war zone. I've watched a lot of video of this stuff and this is one of the remarkable things is a lot of this stuff is on video. LA is notorious for anytime something like this is happening, there's six helicopters, news helicopters overhead within minutes. Just kind of live streaming, or I guess you wouldn't have called it live streaming then, what would you just say?

[Josh Clark]

Broadcasting.

[Chuck Bryant]

Live broadcasting.

[Josh Clark]

There you go.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh man, it's been so long.

[Josh Clark]

You're so 2000 and twenties.

[Chuck Bryant]

I am. So yeah. Live broadcasting this thing from above. So you can watch a lot of this take place, which is horrifying. But again, if you've seen enough movies, you're like, yeah, it looks like a lot of movies I've seen. But a lot of the interviews that since then that have happened with cops that were there and taking place basically said these guys just came out and started shooting at everything that moved. Citizens, cars, buildings. Police cars at the time didn't have kevlar siding in their doors and stuff. So like hiding inside a police car was no good. Hiding behind a police car was better. Cause a bullet going all the way through it at least is gonna, you know, ricochet around and probably not go like straight into you. But you know, they were. It was. All of a sudden it was like Vietnam out there in North Hollywood.

[Josh Clark]

So here's cops had them surrounded and were waiting for them to come out. Number one in the cops Mind, they had no idea if the whole place inside had just been massacred. Because most. Most robbers don't walk in and start shooting into the air. Again, that's movie stuff that these guys were influenced by. So they heard like. Like, I think 50 rounds of automatic rifle fire in the bank while they were waiting for these guys to come out. And they didn't know if everyone inside was just completely killed. That was number one. But number two, the cops also presumed, based on experience and history, that when these guys came out and saw they were surrounded not just by cops and cop cars, but also helicopters, that they would just, you know, put their guns down and put their hands up. So they were surprised at the response that these two guys took on just. Even. Just this first initial wave of dozens of cops. And then they were further surprised when the guy's bullets started going right through any Kevlar vests, started going right through the police cars, started going through buildings, through concrete buildings. There was a concrete locksmith, like, kind of like a photo mat in the parking lot that they were taking shelter behind. The bullets were going through them. This was. It just suddenly turned completely 180 degrees from their expectations. And then even worse than that, they were finding their own guns, were having basically just pinging. The bullets were pinging off of these guys because they were wearing so much body armor. So this is about the moment, almost immediately out of the gate, when the cops were like, this is nothing like anything we've ever experienced before. And we are outgunned right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And this sounds unbelievable, but it's true. It was so bad right away that the cops realized that and said, if there's any available units, go to the gun store down the street and get everything you can. Like, they literally went to a gun store to rearm, or, you know, I guess what would you call it when you. To arm up, raise your armament level up, I guess. So they leveled up on their guns, and they did get guns. Apparently, according to, like, recovered ammunition and stuff, they didn't actually end up using those in the firefight. Cause I guess the whole thing didn't last that long. And I'm sure it took a while to talk the store owner into giving up these guns and getting the matching ammunition and all that. But they sent for backup for themselves by going to a gun store, which is just crazy to think about. And they were like, we need the SWAT team. We're police cruiser guys, and we have revolvers or 9 millimeters, and this ain't happening. SWAT team is downtown, took them about 18 minutes to get there. And they got there, though, they finally showed up. And apparently it was such a quick sort of, let's get there quick thing that one of the SWAT officers was about to go on a jog, and he shows up in, like, jogging shorts.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If you watch, like, the footage of the. Of them taking Matas Orano, he's the first one to him. And it's kind of silly looking, to be honest.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But so, yeah, this first wave of cops that they encountered, I don't know how many cruisers there were, but let's say there's probably six and maybe a dozen or so cops. There were also two. Two bystanders who got caught in the crossfire, both of whom ended up getting shot by those ricochet bullets going through cop cars that they were hiding behind. Cops were getting shot, like, through their Kevlar vests. I think a number of cops were injured, and even worse, they were pinned down. They were in what's called the kill zone. Like, these guys were very easily able to shoot any of these people who were fairly close to them. And so these. These cops had to basically retreat or be pinned down. And some of them were pinned down because they were shot. So if you. If you kind of watch some of the footage or you, you know, read about it, that kind of gets left out. And that was something I thought that the Situation Critical documentary really kind of drove home. Like, there were some people who were in grave. Grave danger in the first, like, 10, 15 minutes of this firefight before backup arrived. And I also saw it described that Phillips and Matasaranu, at one point, especially when they were engaged with that first wave of cops who were totally unprepared and unequipped to deal with them, that they could have made a getaway. And they seem to have decided that they wanted to stay and fight instead. Yeah, that's unusual.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I'm curious about the wisdom of that. Like, if they had left, if these guys just would have went and got in their car and tried to get out of there.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. Who knows? I mean, I don't know. The fact that they had a helicopter on them would have made it pretty difficult. But who knows? It could have been way worse. It could have been shorter. Who knows what could have happened? But I think the point was that they, like bank robbers, don't try to stick around when they're given the option to try to make a run for it.

[Chuck Bryant]

And these guys, yeah, I'm not gonna Monday morning quarterback this thing. Years later, in my podcast booth. Cause I wasn't the one getting shot at on the street. So there was one citizen hero among this crowd, which was dentist Dr. Jorge Montes had an office across the street. And two cops that were injured like, crawled up the stairs to his office. And he, it sounds like he saved at least one of their lives. He treated them immediately. And one of the cops had shrapnel in his ankle. And Montes was smart enough to be like, we should leave that in there. Like, I'll treat you, but I'm not taking that out because it could get worse. And that officer later said that he probably saved my life because I probably would have bled out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's pretty great. So a few minutes before 10. This firefight has been going on for 30, 30 plus minutes now. Okay. Phillips and Matasaranu decide this is a really fateful decision. And no one has any idea why, probably will never know why. But Mata Serano gets in their white Chevy Celebrity, the ugliest getaway car ever. Oh, there's one other thing about that white Chevy celebrity. They had it backed up to the bank in a parking space. And so when they came out and they were shooting at the cops and everybody that, that moved for 30 minutes with their assault weapons. Whenever their assault rifle would like run out of ammo or jam or something, they just throw it down, go to the trunk of the car, and come back with a brand new assault rifle. And they had like drums, like 100 round drums as clips. So they were really doing a lot of damage. And at some point they decided, let's head out. Matasaranu gets in the Chevy Celebrity, and rather than get in with him, Larry Phillips decides to walk alongside, just firing at everybody, while Matasarano slowly drives with him. And then the really fateful decision is made where they decide to split up. And Larry Phillips peels off for Matasaranu and, and starts walking down the sidewalk of a street, a side street that. A residential street into a residential area.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, it's. You know, I think I read a lot about this too. I think he might have thought he was providing some initial cover and the whole split up thing is just, you know, judging from the movies, I think sometimes that's just what they decide to do. Like, you know, instead of concentrating everything on us, if we split up, that'll. That'll split the, you know, the burden or whatever.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, I get that. I also, based on how quickly things happened after that, it also makes me wonder if it was like, I'm just Gonna go take my last stand.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, maybe. I mean, who knows? We're never gonna know, basically. And you'll soon find out why. So in the end, Phillips was shot 11 times. He's walking down this side street.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he's still walking after most of these shots.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he's walking down the side street. He's firing at everything he can. And he gets just like in the movies, like an old Western or something, a cop shoots his hand. Like, shoots the gun out of his hand by shooting his hand. He reaches down, picks it up, puts it under his chin in an attempt to kill himself and pulls the trigger. And, you know, it was sort of a bang bang thing. No one's sure which was the kill shot. But sort of right along that time, either right when it happened or right after he fell, a cop had shot him true romance style, through the side of his body where there was no protection, no protective vest. Cause that stuff is usually like, it's on your back, it's on your chest, but kind of not through the side. And he severed his spine and he was dead immediately from one of the two wounds.

[Josh Clark]

So Larry Phillips is now dead one way or another, either by his own hand or by the cops shot. And that is not the end of things because Mata Seranu is still on the move. He's in his white celebrity moving down the street past where Phillips has just died. And here's. Here's what's crazy, because as we'll see, the LAPD is very much feted after this for having saved North Hollywood, taking on these guys who outgunned them. But there's a really critical point that I think people just move right past. When they were moving up Archwood, this residential street, it was not closed off. So people were driving past Emil Matasaranu within feet, like a handful of feet of this guy. And they were confused. They didn't know what was going on. And he's strapped with like this ak, driving the white celebrity, which now has his tire shut out, like looking for another car. And at least three or four pass him before he finally stops and picks one and starts shooting at the car. And that was a huge, huge failure on the LAPD's part because those guys could have gone anywhere on Archwood street and started taking hostages easily.

[Chuck Bryant]

What was the failure?

[Josh Clark]

That they didn't close the street off. Like, I don't understand how you could. Bank robbery, you could close it off somewhere back there. There was through traffic still coming down Archwood, like right by the bank. If you watch it, it's crazy that.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I know. I just don't. I don't know, man. I think that's also Monday morning quarterbacking. I don't know if they could have. They were in the middle of a shootout. I just. I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, the whole LAPD was focused on this shootout. I feel like they could have shut the street down. It's just crazy to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, agree to disagree. Ok. At any rate, he's firing at cars. He gets in this guy's Jeep pickup truck. And the guy got injured. He was fine. He ran out of there and, you know, got away at least. And he starts, you know, he still thinks he can get out of there. I guess he's transferring weapons from that Chevy to the truck. And three SWAT guys drive over there. He comes out again, and all of a sudden there's another shootout on the street, movie style, with both of them kind of crouched behind these cars. And the cops do a very smart thing, which is shoot underneath the car, at his feet, at his legs, whatever they can hit. And they end up hitting him 28 times and dropped him.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, man. Can you imagine taking 28 shots in your legs and feet?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I can't imagine one.

[Josh Clark]

He put his hands up, he gave up, he surrendered and was laying behind the celebrity. I think in the end, when they captured him, 12 officers had been injured, had been shot. Some were in pretty bad shape. Miraculously, all survived. Eight bystanders had been injured, all of them survived. Everyone in the bank survived. And it turned out that the only two people who didn't survive were Larry Phillips and Emil Matasaranu, who ended up bleeding to death from his injuries lying behind that Chevy celebrity. Isn't that nuts, chuck? I think 17 or 1800 rounds were fired in this 44 minute firefight, and only two people died. The bank robbers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that became a matter of just sort of further scrutiny because Mattis Serrano, you know, he's laying there, he's bleeding, and he says, you know, why don't you put a bullet through my head? And when the EMTs show up, the cops keep them away. They said, don't come over here. EMTs never examined him. And he slowly bled out basically over the next hour and died. They were, you know, heavily scrutinized. I think there was an attorney that ended up filing a suit on behalf of the kids that said, hey, you know, regardless of whether this guy was a bank robber, you can't, you know, you still have an obligation to treat an injured human on the ground. As a copy. The cops response was like, we didn't know if there were other people involved, if they were around, if they had a sniper, if they had explosives on their body. We didn't want to put those EMTs in danger. And in the end they dropped. I'm sorry. It was a deadlock jury at first, so it was a mistrial. And then they decided not to go further with another case because they might be countersued for malicious prosecution.

[Josh Clark]

Well put. Did you read the LA Times article on that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They really went to town putting this thing together and no one came out looking. Okay. You know, no.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it was, you know, the LAPD has always had a checkered reputation. So like at first they were heroes because this was all over the news and this was, you know, a handful of years after Rodney King, when they had probably an all time low opinion rating. So they were like, look at the cops, like protecting you and putting their lives at risk. So it was good for PR at first, but then they let them bleed out in the street for an hour. I'm sure a lot of people are like, good. And a lot of people are like, yeah, you still can't do that.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. So one of the other outcomes of this was that it changed police forces across the United States forever. Like, the police realized that they were not equipped for something like this to happen in not only Los Angeles, but every other town in the United States. And in the Defense Spending Act, I think of 1997, they passed a section called 1033 that said that the Department of Defense can sell any excess armory weapons material to local police departments. Now that's a new thing. And it turned into what's been roundly considered the militarization of the police. That's had all sorts of knock on effects, including, according to multiple studies, an increase in death during police shootings. And that's a big criticism of this, that rather than people saying, let's reduce the public's access to things like assault rifles that can kill tons of people and have firefights like this, instead the push has been to let's arm the cops equally to these criminals that can be armed to the teeth as well, to make it even. Which there's a logic to it, sure. But you could also reduce the public's access to those kind of things as well. And that didn't really happen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, one of the good things that came out of it was PTSD counseling for police officers was not such a big thing at the time. And after this it became much more just sort of implemented across the country.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that is a good thing for sure. Anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

I think there's a In Grand Theft Auto 5, one of the heists, the Paleto score is based on this too. And there's a movie called 44 Minutes that was made for TV on FX and it's terrible.

[Chuck Bryant]

I bet.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to know anything else about the North Hollywood shootout, there's plenty to see and read about that. And while you're reading and seeing about the North Hollywood shootout, I think it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm going to call this follow up that I Feel Pretty Bad about. We did our podcast episode on Kenton Guru, Grand Canyon River Adventurer, not too long ago and we actually heard from his wife. Michelle grew up, who was she's not a Stuff youf Should Know listener, but someone told her about it, she listened and she wanted to clear up some things and so I'm gonna read it. It's a little lengthy, but I feel like we owe it to her. Hey guys, I was surprised to be informed by a friend of your podcast about my late husband, Factor. Yes, our children and I all called him Factor. That was his preferred name. I appreciate that you obtained most of your information from Kevin's book the Emerald Mile, which is for the most part accurate. There are some things that you said that are not accurate and depictions of Factor that I'd like to set straight. These things are likely only important to me, our children, and to his two brothers if they were to ever hear your podcast. I can tell that you appreciated his adventurous spirit and the grandiosity of the things he did, but I would gently suggest that you might consider the feelings of those left behind with regard to the way you depict someone. He's not just some character and a really cool story. He's someone's husband, father and brother who is sorely missed. I do not expect any kind of retraction, public retraction. I just wanted to let you know about the inaccuracy so you could have a more clear picture of him. He was the most humble, gracious, generous, respectful, considerate, fierce soul I've ever met. Truly one of a kind and the greatest factor in my life. Regarding the description of him really liking booze and hiking out to obtain extra liquor. The passengers on that particular commercial trip are the ones who requested extra booze, and given that there's no delivery into the canyon, he offered to hike out and procure a resupply for them. Regarding the moccasins, he was A purist. And his reasoning was that the ancient weblands who'd lived in the canyon had likely worn moccasins, and he wanted to pay homage to them and not have any unfair modern advantage like hiking boots. He had scouted the route before, and the first through hike attempt had. He had placed food caches. Caches, Caches, caches for that hike, as well as doing so the second time as an insight into his character. He hiked back in to remove all of them after the hike, leaving no trace. You said that he was obsessed. If you can say that about someone who smokes that much pot. I feel like you may have missed a key element of Kenton's character in your reading about him. That he had a fierce intellectual, an intense focus, and once he got ahold of an idea, he ruminated on it, turned it over and over in his mind until he worked out all the details. Not consistent with the sleepy image you conjure up when thinking about a typical stoner. It also bears mentioning that the original idea was Wally Wrists. Wally, Rudy and Kitten did the original speed one, but Wally was no longer working on the river in 83 and thus not able to partake this time around. Kitten came up with the idea to put a second set of oarlocks on the boat so you could have two rowing stations to tackle the flat water at the far west of the canyon. As far as the fine, the fine that was imposed is reportedly $500, but I have the canceled check to the Cococino County Magistrate in the amount of $250 paid by Kenton. So your assertion that he couldn't afford it is not accurate. He never mentioned any imposition of community service to me as well. And we are also quite sure of how he died. He died not due collision or impact, but from the spontaneous aortic dissection, not an aneurysm. He was found unresponsive on the trail by a hiker while the kids and I were at home awaiting his return. He was not dead when the hiker found him. He was taken to the local hospital where resuscitation efforts failed. He wasn't laying in a peaceful position. The hiker said he was still astride his bike, and it appeared that he had just tipped over. Indeed, he had a little cut over his ear where his sunglasses dug into the side of his head when he landed. As a physician myself, I can tell you he was probably in significant chest pain. And he died about 200 yards after passing through what would have been a busy trailhead parking area. So he was probably pedaling like hell to get home just a couple of miles away, but dissected and lost consciousness less than a minute after passing through the lot. I only discovered it when he was two hours late getting home from the ride and called the hospital where I worked to see if they had any mountain bikers that had come in. They said yes, but they weren't able to identify him. And that was the last moment of true peace that I had. I am glad you found his story so compelling. I'm sure he's glad people are hearing of it and he doesn't have to do the telling himself, but accuracy is important. Please don't paint him as a caricature. Best Michelle Grua and I emailed her a very long email back and I felt terrible about all this and she was very sweet and much more graceful than I would have been in her position.

[Josh Clark]

So yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, if you're gonna get taken to task by a living relative of someone we profile, it's about as nice as it can get. For sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So thank you Michelle for that. And just publicly I'm sorry for anything we did that cost you any upset.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, agreed. It was definitely not our intent to to create a caricature out of him. That's never our intent. So sorry that that happened inadvertently. And thank you for taking the time to write all that. And thank you Chuck, for reading all of it. Certainly, if you want to get in touch with us like Michelle Grua did, you can use email as she did as well. Send it off to stuff [e-mail].

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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