Banks get tough on security as stickups shoot at new record.

Fed up with the increasing number of bank robberies, the big three California banks are spending millions to install bulletproof glass and taking other security precautions at bank branches.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and First Interstate Bank of California have begun installing the glass, known as "bandit barriers" and "security screens," between customers and tellers at hundreds of branches statewide. Installing the bulletproof barriers costs an average of $50,000 a branch, bank officials said.

In addition to the glass, banks are spending more money on hiring security, installing video cameras and are posting huge rewards, like the $50,000 rewards recently offered by Wells Fargo and Bank of America for perpetrators of violent "takeover" robberies.

Unlike the majority of robberies in which one bandit shows a gun or a note to one teller, takeovers usually involve a number of bandits who may enter a branch brandishing weapons, shouting obscenities, said Bill Wipprecht, director of security for Wells Fargo. Bank employees and customers have been assaulted and shot at different banks around the state during takeovers, Wipprecht said.

Wipprecht said bank officials feel the increased losses and the new trend of violent bank takeovers are unacceptable and the bank has committed significant funding to the battle.

"You fool around with us and we're going to get you," he said.

Before the year is even ended, 1992 has surpassed 1991 to set a new record for bank robberies in the Southland, said Kenneth Jacobsen, supervisory special agent in charge of the bank robbery division of the L.A. division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As of Dec. 7, a total of 2,485 branches had been robbed in 1992, Jacobsen said. This compares to 2,355 heists for all of 1991 in the L.A., Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Luis Obispo counties, Jacobsen said.

Historically, 25 percent of all bank robberies in the country occur in the L.A. district, Jacobsen noted.

Much of the increase this year can be attributed to an alarming trend of bank "takeovers" by Los Angeles area gangs in which bank customers and employees have been assaulted, Jacobsen said.

So far this year, there were 408 takeover robberies, compared to 140 last year, Jacobsen said.

Charles Coleman, spokesman for Bank of America, said, "We look at this trend of armed takeover robbery as a very serious problem. We will spend whatever it takes to stem it."

By the end of the year, Bank of America will have installed bulletproof glass in over 100 branches statewide, Coleman said. "Most of them have been installed in the last few months," he added.

The bank intends to continue to assess and install the glass, which it calls "security screens," in branches in 1993 "as we determine they're needed," he added.

Wells Fargo, the second largest bank in the state, has installed bulletproof glass, which the bank calls "bandit barriers" at 80 branches this year and plans to install them at another 20 branches next year, Wipprecht said.

He said bank officials have noted a decrease in robberies at branches where the bulletproof glass was installed. What Wipprecht and the FBI's Jacobsen say they don't know is how many potential robbers are actually deterred from holding up banks.

Wipprecht and other bank officials declined to state how large bank robbery losses were. Wipprecht said, however, "The major banks in California will lose $12 million to $15 million a year" to bank robbers.

Bank officials said they are not as concerned with the actual dollar loss as they are about trauma to customers and employees and bad publicity.

Small community banks also have begun installing bulletproof glass in branches, said Jon Nakamura, associate counsel for the California Bankers Association.

But the installations are causing arguments within banks across the state, Nakamura said.

"It's the marketing department vs. the security department," he said. "The marketing department does not like to see this (bulletproof glass) because of the impersonal feeling" it imparts in a branch.

Installing the glass is expensive, Nakamura added. "It starts at $40,000 and goes up."

In the last three months First Interstate Bank of California has begun installing bulletproof glass at five of its branches, said Tom Ferry, bank deputy director of security. In addition, "we have identified 51 branches we consider above normal risk," he said.

Those 51 are candidates for the bandit barriers and final decisions on whether or not to install the glass there will be made in the next several months, Ferry said.

"We resisted the need to do this for a long time," Ferry said. The bank has paid as little as $30,000 a branch and as much as $60,000, but the average cost of installing the bandit barriers runs about $50,000, he said.

Bank officials are concerned that they might lose customer service points, but feel somewhat compelled to install the barriers because of the number of robberies, and because other banks do it, Ferry said.

"We're aware of our competitor banks and what they're doing," he said. "If you have three banks within a mile of each other and two of those banks have bandit barriers, which one is going to get robbed?"