Armed Bandits Hunted

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31378, 25 May 1967, Page 13

Armed Bandits Hunted

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

BROCKTON (Massachusetts), May 24. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and local police began an extensive manhunt yesterday for three armed bandits who stole an estimated $536,000 from an armoured car.

The masked gunmen carried out the robbery after hiding inside a bank and ambushing two guards and a bank employee. The men apparently used a key to enter the bank and concealed themselves until the armoured vehicle pulled up with its two guards and the bank employee. Police said the branch bank in a shopping centre showed no sign of forced entry. The bank doors were not linked to the burglar alarm system, officials said. It was the second armoured car robbery on the Massachusetts south shore in less than two months and the sixth in

Massachusetts in the last 14 months. The robbery was almost foiled by a policeman on a routine patrol, who was cruising a nearby wooded area when he came upon the armoured truck parked in a clearing. However, the bandits, who were transferring the money to two cars, disarmed the policeman and made him lie on the ground. They fled after ripping out the radio wire in his patrol car.