BANK ROBBED IN MOJAVE FOUR ARRESTED; ONE STILL AT LARGE.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Two bank robbery suspects were arrested and a third was being hunted Friday in a Lancaster neighborhood after a Mojave bank holdup turned into a freeway chase.

Two women suspected of driving the getaway vehicle and letting the three men out in Lancaster were stopped on the Antelope Valley Freeway in Santa Clarita.

``The guys jumped out here in Lancaster and the women drove off and got back on the freeway,'' Kern County sheriff's Sgt. Mike Lackey said as law enforcement officers searched where the men fled in a neighborhood north of Avenue I near Sierra Highway.

Officers arrested two men they found hiding in an attic. A sheriff's deputy was wounded in the leg when a gun went off accidentally during the search, officials said.

The suspects' names were not immediately released. The wounded officer also was not identified immediately.

The robbery occurred just after 9:30 a.m. Friday at the Mojave Desert Bank in the 15570 block of K Street, when three robbers entered the bank and ordered customers and employees to lie on the floor.

When the bank robbers left, they dropped some of the money before they climbed into a white Toyota Camry that sped off.

The robbers parked the car a few blocks away, where a witness saw them get into a silver sports utility vehicle driven by a woman with a female passenger. A Kern County Sheriff's Department deputy spotted the Chevrolet Tahoe as it entered the Antelope Valley Freeway and California Highway Patrol officers chased it.

At one point, the female driver pulled over and got out of the SUV, but she refused to obey a CHP officer's order to walk backward toward him, Lackey said.

The CHP officer said he saw a man raise his head from the back of the SUV, and the woman re-entered the vehicle and drove off again.

CHP officers followed until SUV exited the freeway in Lancaster, where Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies took over. The pursuit went to Avenue H-8 near Date Avenue where the three men jumped out and ran. Deputies followed the three men and the SUV drove off.

CHP officers spotted the SUV on the Antelope Valley Freeway near Santa Clarita and took both women into custody. Money was found inside the vehicle, Lackey said.

In Lancaster, deputies surrounded the neighborhood into which the men had run. Special Enforcement Bureau members, police dogs and a helicopter were brought in for the search.

Law enforcement officers ordered people to stay inside their homes. Police used roadblocks to keep out anyone trying to enter the neighborhood.

Around noon, two of the three men were found hiding inside the attic of a house. The third was still being sought Friday afternoon.

The two women and two men were taken to Lancaster sheriff's station jail until investigators could transfer them to Kern County Jail.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color AV edition only) An injured sheriff's deputy is loaded onto a helicopter Friday. The deputy was accidentally wounded in the leg during the search for robbery suspects.

(2 -- color) Sheriff's deputies block a residential area Friday to search for robbers of a Mojave bank who were seen running into the neighborhood north of Avenue I.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer