A Painful Look Back at Shootout

VAN NUYS —  Los Angeles Police Officer Martin Whitfield knows what he will do today to mark the six-month anniversary of the North Hollywood bank shootout.

It happens on the 28th day of every month--ever since four bullets tore into his body during the 40-minute gunfight. He will keep a close eye on the clock, reliving his movements of that morning, recalling the pain and, at times, rejoicing in his survival.

“My heart will jump and I will remember all the feelings,” Whitfield said. “It will just stop me in my tracks.”

On Feb. 28, two robbers wrapped in body armor fired hundreds of rounds from assault weapons as they made their way from a Bank of America branch to their death in a nearby neighborhood. In all, 11 police officers and six civilians were injured during the terrifying siege that was broadcast live on local television.

Whitfield thinks about it constantly, in part because his physical recovery remains slow and painful.

Shot in his left arm, left buttock, right thigh and under his right arm, Whitfield, 30, moves cautiously, walking with the help of a cane or crutches. He has a rod in his hip, another in his leg and torn ligaments in his knee. He undergoes physical therapy three days a week and sees a psychologist twice a week.

He talks quietly but intensely, saying: “Even though I was in a dangerous job, I just didn’t expect to ever be so broken and broken down.”

Of the officers injured in the gun battle, Whitfield has suffered the most. All the other officers but one, Stuart Guy, have returned to work.

Whitfield may never.

“There’s a gap between my love for that kind of work and putting that badge back on, which would mean that I would be willing to go through the same thing again,” Whitfield said, sitting in the living room of his Van Nuys home. “I ask myself that question. Would I? Absolutely not.”

“Martin lived,” he continued, “but Martin’s ‘policeman’s spirit’ was killed in that shootout.”

Whitfield was a proud cop. He eagerly joined the Los Angeles Police Department at the age of 22, a month after being discharged from the U.S. Navy. He spent the last 6 1/2 years working at the Van Nuys station, where he had a reputation for telling the most--and some say the worst--jokes during roll call. He was an officer who spoke his mind.

He also had his share of troubles. Whitfield had five traffic accidents in black-and-white patrol cars; two were his fault. He was investigated by Internal Affairs for alleged drug dealing. A 3-inch-thick report cleared him of any wrongdoing. His bosses say he deserves the highest recognition for his bravery during the bank robbery.

Whitfield remains outspoken. But he is less focused on police work, his former bosses or old buddies. His uniform cap sits atop a living room shelf, his badge and Sam Browne belt sit in a box shoved to the back of a closet. His service revolver is in the custody of the LAPD.

On a recent day, a patrol car pulls up. Two officers, former partners and longtime friends, stop by to cajole and gossip, check on their wounded friend. Neither of them was on duty the day of the shooting, and they appear sorry to have missed it.

“He used to tell more jokes than he does now,” says Officer Brian Barnes. “He’s gotten a lot more serious since that day.”

But such distractions are fleeting. Soon the visitors leave and Whitfield is again thinking about that Friday morning.

He had given his fiancee a police scanner early in the morning that changed his life. At the time, she was studying to become a dispatcher for the emergency 911 system and was interested in the workaday chatter of police.

Instead of the normal drone of police talk, she heard instead the terrifying sequence of events that began shortly after 9 a.m.

Alone on patrol, Whitfield heard the report of a robbery in progress. He drove quickly to the north side of the Bank of America on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The gunmen were inside when Whitfield arrived. He pulled his police car next to Sgt. Dean Haynes.

Standing with his back to the bank and behind his car, Whitfield had just finished broadcasting a report over his car radio when the two robbers left the bank.

“I was the first one they saw and the first one they hit,” Whitfield said.

The bullets passed through his patrol car before hitting him. Haynes, who saw him get shot, alerted dispatchers.

Whitfield was hit twice more. He got up and ran, despite the bullet wounds. As he fled, he was shot again but kept going, finally grabbing a tree to support him.

“While I was hugging that tree, I feel the bullets going into the tree,” he said, switching in mid-sentence from past to present tense. “The tree is shaking. It’s like holding a punching bag and someone just keeps punching.”

He opened fire, emptying his 15-round magazine. It was the first time Whitfield had fired his weapon in a confrontation.

Officers took turns shooting at the gunmen to divert their attention from Whitfield, who lay on the ground.

But Whitfield says the robbers, Emil Matasareanu and Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., kept firing at him because, he believes, they saw a vulnerable, dying cop.

“I was talking to myself: ‘You’ll be fine,’ ‘Slow your breathing,’ ‘You’ll be OK,’ ” Whitfield said. “I was thinking how much I didn’t want this to be true. I . . . think I’m in a nightmare and I’m going to wake up.”

Bullets bounced off the sidewalk and the street all around Whitfield, who still had not lost consciousness.

Whitfield heard a police dispatcher’s encouraging words: “Hang on. You’re going to be OK.”

But Whitfield believed he might die. He thought of his fiancee, their baby and his two 6-year-old boys. “You think about unfinished business--who you’ll miss most,” he said, slowly. “I pictured all my kids smiling.”

Then, Whitfield heard on his radio that the gunmen were heading north, toward him. He reloaded his gun, put it at his side and pretended to be dead.

“I played dead in hopes they’d look at a dead officer and keep going instead of looking at an officer struggling to survive and finish him off,” Whitfield said.

Haynes, who at this point was nearby, broadcast that Whitfield appeared to be losing consciousness and was dying.

The gunmen went past him without firing, turning on Archwood Street, where both died, one by his own bullet and the other shot by police.

Officers helped Whitfield into an armored truck that carried him and other wounded officers and civilians, out of harm’s way.

“It was such a ‘Twilight Zone,’ ” Whitfield said. “I was lying in this truck full of money. . . . I’m seeing bullet holes in these people.”

Whitfield was still in the truck when, minutes later, former LAPD Chief Willie L. Williams looked in and shook his bloody hand. “Don’t worry,” Whitfield recalls the chief telling him. “You’re going to be all right.”

After seven hours of surgery, Whitfield spent the next 12 days recovering in the hospital.

Then he came home, where he remains on paid leave.

“When I thought I was dying, I kept thinking that I was dying all alone,” he said. “No one could get to me.

“All I can do now,” he says, smiling, “is try to get better . . . raise my kids and appreciate life.”