ROBBERS TOSS OUT THEIR LOOT DYE PACKS EXPLODE IN CASH STOLEN FROM BANK.

Byline: CHARLES F. BOSTWICK Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Bank robbers threw thousands of dollars in cash out of their getaway car's windows and onto Lancaster streets Wednesday morning as they fled a holdup.

The robbers tossed the cellophane-wrapped cash packets after hidden dye packs exploded inside the loot, spewing red ink on the cash and on the robbers inside the stolen Chevrolet Camaro getaway car.

``The dye packs went off in it,'' Deputy Rick Nolte said.

Detectives did not disclose how much money was stolen in the Antelope Valley Federal Credit Union holdup, or how much was recovered on the streets and in the getaway car, which the robbers abandoned about a half-mile from the credit union to switch to a second vehicle.

The robbers were at large late Wednesday afternoon. Deputies said they did not know whether the robbers were the same two men who on Monday morning held up a Wells Fargo branch inside an Albertsons supermarket three miles away in west Lancaster.

Deputies collected the stained money packets -- some containing stacks of $100 bills -- from a street adjoining an elementary school and in the cul-de-sac where the getaway car was found.

Witnesses told deputies that a passer-by appeared to pick up at least one of the cash packets, though a detective working the case said Wednesday that he hadn't been able to confirm that.

The two robbers, their faces masked by bandannas and at least one armed with a gun, entered the Antelope Valley Federal Credit Union headquarters on 15th Street West about 9:45a.m. Wednesday and ordered employees and customers to lie down on the floor, deputies said.

They fled in a 1995 Chevrolet Camaro that had been reported stolen last week in San Bernardino County. After dropping some of the cash, the robbers turned into a cul-de-sac and abandoned the car, jumping a block wall to reach a white Chevrolet van waiting on an adjoining street.

Pupils at nearby Sunnydale School were kept inside their classrooms as a precaution for about 30 minutes, until deputies confirmed that the robbers had driven away from the neighborhood.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Bags of stolen money lie on the steet in Lancaster on Wednesday afternoon after a credit union was robbed on 15th Street West near Avenue J-8. Dye packs inside the cash exploded.

(2) A sheriff's deputy directs traffic away from a crime scene in Lancaster on Wednesday afternoon after a credit union was robbed on 15th Street West near Avenue J-8.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer