`EVERY OFFICER OUT THERE WAS A HERO' : DETECTIVE TRACY ANGELES HELPED SAVE COMRADE.

Byline: Lee Condon and Eric Leach Daily News Staff Writers

LAPD Detective Tracy Angeles never saw anything like what she faced at the Bank of America shootout.

As millions of television viewers watched, the plainclothes detective in a blue outfit helped pull fallen Officer Stuart Guy to safety while trying to duck overwhelming gunfire.

``Guy yelled `I've been hit.' I looked over and I could see the blood. His leg didn't look like it was part of his body,'' said Angeles, who gave birth to a boy named Ryan just five months ago.

``I remember he kept looking over at me,'' he said. ``I kept repeating to him: Keep your head down. He said, `You've got to get me out of here.' ''

What viewers didn't see was how another officer saved Angeles' life when the shooting began Friday morning, how Guy picked up the radio she dropped and later used it to call for help, and how two Van Nuys officers drove into the parking lot to pull her and Guy out of the line of fire.

``I didn't do anything extraordinary,'' Angeles insisted. ``There's not one person you can put your finger on and say that's the hero of the day.

``Every Los Angeles police officer out there was a hero.''

At scene early

When the radio call went out that a bank was being robbed, the 29-year-old North Hollywood station robbery detective happened to be working on an investigation nearby with her partner William John Krulac at Oxnard Street and Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

Angeles, who came off maternity leave six weeks ago, and Krulac were the third and fourth officers to arrive on the scene. They went to the front of the bank and staked out a position with Guy and Officer James Zboravan in a locksmith kiosk in the parking lot of Builder's Emporium across the street.

``Just as Krulac said, `You know this is lousy cover,' all you could hear was gunfire,'' Angeles said. ``Officer Zboravan threw me on the ground and lay on top of me. We were taking heavy, heavy fire.''

The four officers then made a run for cover across the Builder's Emporium parking lot. Angeles was armed with only a 9 mm pistol and was not wearing a bulletproof vest.

``I fell face first, and my gun went skidding on the cement,'' she said. ``I could hear the bullets hitting the cement and slicing the metal of the cars. I remember thinking we weren't going to come out of this alive. . . . I felt like I was personally being fired upon.''

``Everything felt like slow motion,'' she said. ``I felt like my limbs wouldn't work.''

Angeles found cover behind a Cadillac and saw Krulac and Zboravan had made it out of the parking lot. But Guy had been shot in the leg and the arm and was bleeding badly behind a mini-van parked about 15 feet away from her.

``I thought, if I run to officer Guy, I'm going to get killed, or Guy's going to get hit again,'' Angeles said. ``I'm going to draw attention to the location. I kept thinking, if I get shot, what good am I to him?''

Call for help

Despite the pain of his injuries, Guy had bound his leg with his belt and managed to call for help on his police radio. Angeles had been grazed by one of the bullets in the buttocks, but was not seriously injured.

``It was probably about 10 or 15 minutes, but it seemed like hours. Then I saw a Van Nuys police car sneaking up real slowly behind us,'' she said. ``I've never been so happy seeing a police car in my life.''

She was joined at that point by Van Nuys patrol Officers Todd Schmitz, 25, and Tony Cabunoc, 34.

``One of the officers told me he had me covered,'' said Angeles, who went to Guy's side, pulled off her black sneakers and socks and tried to use her sock to stop the bleeding from his arm.

``That's when we started taking gunfire again,'' Angeles said.

Angeles and the two Van Nuys officers then moved Guy into the patrol car.

``We got Officer Guy in the back seat of the patrol car. His injured leg was hanging out of the back door. We all felt at that point we had to get out of there.''

Brave officers

Angeles said she had no idea at the time who the Van Nuys officers were, but said she was only able to get to Guy because the other officers were brave enough to drive into the parking lot and help them despite the gunfire.

``At that point I felt I was going to make it, that Officer Guy was going to make it,'' Angeles said.

The incident was the most horrifying Angeles has been through in her seven years with the LAPD.

``I didn't do anything extraordinary, and I'm not a hero,'' she said. ``Every Los Angeles police officer out there was a hero. I wouldn't have been where I was if it wasn't for Officer Zboravan. Every officer helped every officer.''

Angeles is married to another Los Angeles police officer, Angelito Angeles, who has been working at the Police Academy. As one of the first officers to arrive at the Northridge Meadows apartment complex after the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake, Angelito Angeles was credited with helping to rescue 15 people and given the department's Medal of Valor.

As for the fact that no officers were killed, Tracy Angeles said its ``phenomenal, sheer luck.''

``It's really about time it worked in our favor. You always hear about officers getting killed and the suspects living,'' Angeles said. ``Guys like that I can't say I'm upset that they've expired.''

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2 Photos, Map

Photo: (1--color) ``I've been through the fires, the floods, the earthquake, the riots,'' she added. ``This (was) by far the scariest, most bone chilling incident out of all of them. We had like squirt guns compared to their fire power.''

Courtesy KTLA 

(2--color) no caption (Tracy Angeles)

Map: (color) HEROIC RESCUE