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Monday, Jun. 30, 2008

Former Vietnam pilot has a few choice stories to tell, including infamous 1997 North Hollywood shootout

Former helicopter pilot has a few choice stories to tell, including the infamous 1997 North Hollywood shootout

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As a pair of brazen bank robbers shot at his helicopter, Los Angeles Police Department pilot Charles Perriguey was reminded of his stint in Vietnam — except this sensational shootout was more intense than any war battle he’d experienced.

“The difference was, this was a 44-minute event, and we were over it for most of the 44 minutes,” said Perriguey, who now lives in Nipomo.

“In Vietnam when you get in a gun battle, you only have so many bullets. So you’re shooting at bad guys, and they’re shooting at you, but in less than 15 minutes, you’re done — you’re heading back to the base to get more bullets.”

That well-publicized, 1997 North Hollywood gun fight — which became the subject of a TV movie with Mario Van Peebles and Michael Madsen — came late in Perriguey’s career. But it remains the most intriguing thing he’d experience in 26 years as a member of the LAPD’s elite air unit.

“It was beyond crazy,” said the retired pilot. “It was bizarre.”

An unlikely career

Becoming a pilot was an unlikely career path for Perriguey, who had only flown once as a child.

He had entered CSU Los Angeles as an engineering student. But when he became disillusioned with school, the Southern California native enlisted in the Marines.

“I just figured I’d be a rifleman,” he said.

He scored well on testing, though, and was invited to become a pilot candidate. Once he qualified, he was trained first to fly planes, then helicopters. He also was trained to be a forward air controller, directing bombs sent to protect U. S. troops.

He only spent a year in Vietnam, but it was an intense year, with Perriguey flying about 500 combat missions.

“Every day you’re shooting at somebody,” he said, “and they’re shooting back at you.”

One day, he picked up a team of eight soldiers in Laos and got hit by shrapnel from a rocket grenade launcher in the process. For that, he was awarded a Silver Star.

After he was injured, he worked as an air controller, sending support to troops on the ground. One of those soldiers, an infantry platoon leader named John O’Connell, would later become a lifelong friend.

During a chance meeting on a mountaintop, Perriguey offered the embattled O’Connell—who would also earn a Silver Star—a beer.

“I hadn’t seen an ice cold beer in over four months,”O’Connell said.

The two didn’t exchange names, but they would meet again a few years later and a few thousand miles away.

A chance reunion

Even while in Vietnam, Perriguey was thinking about his return to civilian life. And in 1972, he joined the police academy in Los Angeles. While attending a meeting with his Marine reserve unit, he met O’Connell again, and the two remembered their encounter in Vietnam.

As it turned out, O’Connell had joined the LAPD six months earlier. The two became friends, as did their wives and daughters (two apiece).

While Perriguey was a street cop his first three years, he became interested in the LAPD’s air unit when it expanded in 1974.

That year, the department had 15 helicopters, which worked a variety of incidents.

“You work over pursuits, bank robberies, burglaries,” he said. “You’re seeing bad guys jumping out of the back windows of houses, and you’re putting police officers on them.

“And that was our job. Our job was to support the ground officers.”

‘They didn’t even stagger’

On the morning of Feb. 28, 1997, there would be about 200 officers present during a dramatic shootout that rivaled action movies filmed at nearby studios.

Shortly after 9 a. m., Larry Phillips Jr., 26, and Emil Matasareanu, 30, arrived at a Bank of America branch in North Hollywood, wearing black masks and homemade body armor.

Foiling their plans, police officers happened to spot them as they entered the bank. As the officers called for help, they heard shots fired inside the building.

Perriguey, who was training a reserve officer over downtown Los Angeles, was the closest LAPD helicopter pilot to the scene. (O’Connell was overseeing a courthouse demonstration concerning hip-hop mogul Suge Knight.)

“When we arrived, they were still inside the bank,” Perriguey said. “And then they came out through the entry way. And they started shooting at us, in addition to shooting at the other police officers on the ground.”

While dozens of other police officers arrived, they found themselves initially outgunned by the bandits, who were armed with assault rifles, armor-piercing bullets and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, smoke bombs and explosive devices. (The LAPD would later upgrade its cars with assault rifles and Kevlar doors in response to the incident.)

While the pair was outnumbered, the body armor seemed to make them invincible.

“They didn’t go down,” Perriguey said. “They didn’t even stagger.” As the robbers shot at Perriguey’s helicopter, he changed speed and altitude to avoid getting hit, constantly trailing the robbers from different angles.

At the same time, he had to avoid television news helicopters covering the melee.

When the robbers started to move—at one time, Phillips walked casually beside a getaway car driven by Matasareanu—Perriguey’s role became more important.

“When they started moving, we started talking more,” he said, “because there were police officers that were down the street that didn’t know the bad guys were coming.”

The two robbers — wearing down from the action and the heavy body armor — eventually separated. After one of his guns jammed, Phillips shot himself in the head just as a police bullet hit him in the spine.

Matasareanu tried to commandeer a civilian pickup but fell to the ground after being shot in the legs nearly 30 times. He eventually bled to death while in police handcuffs. (His family later sued, saying he was denied medical help, but the case was dismissed after a mistrial.)

“They were fighting until the bitter end,” Perriguey said. “Their intent was not to go to jail.”

No civilians or police officers died in the incident.

In his 30 years of service with the LAPD, that day was clearly the most memorable for Perriguey.

He retired a few years after that. And in 2002, he followed O’Connell to San Luis Obispo County, where the two camp, enjoy wine tasting and travel together. O’Connell said Perriguey is an avid golfer, a fine host and a perfectionist.

“He’s a typical aviator,”O’Connell said. “They’re very confident.”

Perriguey doesn’t fly any more; owning his own aircraft would be too expensive. But with 30 years experience with the Marines and LAPD, he and O’Connell are never at a loss for words.

“Get us around a campfire, and we could probably tell you a couple of stories,” O’Connell said.