Crime & Safety

Update: Bank Heist Leaves One Hospitalized

Two men hold up the Wells Fargo in French Valley, and one employee is rushed to the hospital.

 

UPDATE: Details about the search were added at 1:59 p.m. Friday.

A woman was hospitalized after two men held up a bank in French Valley today.

Find out what's happening in Temeculawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

An employee hit the silent alarm at 9:16 a.m. at the , according to sheriff's Lt. Rick Young.

Two men went into the bank with handguns and escaped with bags of cash, according to police and witnesses.

Find out what's happening in Temeculawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Joseph Sivula, a Winchester resident, was using the ATM outside with his 1-year-old son when the robbery happened.

"I heard the doors fly open, and they (suspects) went running out… they were running fast," he said shortly after the robbery. "They had bags with money flying out of them like something you'd see in the movies."

More than a dozen patrol cars set up a perimeter and swarmed the area while two bloodhounds and a helicopter searched for the suspects.

RELATED: See a gallery of photos from the crime scene.

A bloodhound tracked the suspects' scent up an embankment adjacent to the parking lot to a street, where an escape vehicle may have been parked, said Murrieta Police Officer Travis Shows.

A woman who a witness identified as a bank employee was rushed out on a stretcher and put into an ambulance. Her identity and condition were unavailable as of publication time.

"I saw my friend from the bank getting carried away. That was really sad," said Juli Bullard, an employee at a nearby .

She first heard about the robbery from a panicked customer. "A customer ran in and said, 'Two guys walked into the bank with guns,'" she said.

Roger Hames, an employee of the next to the bank, said he believes he saw the bank get cased last week.

He was on a cigarette break outside the grocery store when he noticed a man walk out of the bank wearing latex gloves and cloth booties over his shoes.

"The only reason you'd wear them is if you're doing surgery, or if you're trying not to leave fingerprints," Hames said. "I had this feeling, I bet this bank gets hit, and look at it now."

Investigators were working on identifying the suspects around 11:30 a.m. today.

"We're still analyzing (surveillance video) stills," Lt. Young said.

They were exploring the possibility the incident could be related to one that happened yesterday in Hemet, though the connection is uncertain, the lieutenant said.

"We haven't been able to make the correlation just yet," he said.

Several other banks were robbed in Temecula last year.

of quietly robbing on Oct. 27. by passing a threatening note to a teller.

The in Redhawk was robbed in April when .

The suspect was later killed in

Another location of the chain on Rancho California Road .

The on Ynez Road was also robbed by a man who passed a note to a teller. He was chased to Menifee and shot several times by officers. .

The investigation is ongoing. Anybody with information was asked to call the Temecula Police Department at 951-696-3000.

-- Maggie Avants contributed to this report.


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