Officers shouted repeatedly for Phillips and Mătăsăreanu to drop their weapons, but none of the officers fired.
Phillips and Mătăsăreanu began to engage the officers, firing rounds into the patrol cars that had been positioned on Laurel Canyon in front of the bank.[15] Officers immediately opened fire. The patrol officers were armed with standard Beretta 92F and Beretta 92FS 9mm pistols and Smith & Wesson Model 15 .38 caliber revolvers, Officer James Zaboravan also carried a 12-gauge Ithaca Model 37 pump-action shotgun, but the body armor worn by Phillips and Mătăsăreanu was strong enough to resist penetration.
Phillips and Mătăsăreanu began to engage the officers, firing rounds into the patrol cars that had been positioned on Laurel Canyon in front of the bank.[15] Officers immediately opened fire. The patrol officers were armed with standard Beretta 92F and Beretta 92FS 9mm pistols and Smith & Wesson Model 15 .38 caliber revolvers, Officer James Zaboravan also carried a 12-gauge Ithaca Model 37 pump-action shotgun, but the body armor worn by Phillips and Mătăsăreanu was strong enough to resist penetration.[14] Multiple officers and civilians were wounded in the seven to eight minutes from when the shooting began to when Mătăsăreanu entered the robbers' white sedan to make a getaway; Phillips remained outside the vehicle and continued firing on officers and helicopters with the HK91, possibly providing covering fire for Mătăsăreanu and using the car for cover. Phillips fired from 50 to 100 rounds from the HK91, until it was struck in the receiver and magazine by police bullets, and Phillips was hit in the shoulder. He later retrieved a Norinco Type 56 S-1 from the trunk of the Celebrity.[14] A tactical alert was issued, and 18 minutes after the shooting had started, a SWAT team armed with AR-15s arrived.
At 9:52 Phillips, who had been using the getaway vehicle as cover, split from Mătăsăreanu, turned east on Archwood Street, took cover behind a parked truck, and continued to fire at the police with his AKM.[20] However, the gun suffered a malfunction. Erroneously reported as a "stovepipe" jam, in reality a round had become jammed while feeding into the chamber, also trapping the spent cartridge from the previous round. He made an attempt to remove the drum and clear the jam, but ultimately discarded the weapon after failing to clear it, possibly due to being wounded in the left hand and forearm. After abandoning the rifle, Phillips drew a Beretta 92FS pistol and continued firing at police. He was then shot in the right hand, briefly dropped the pistol, retrieved it, and placed the muzzle of his pistol under his chin and shot himself.
Mătăsăreanu left the truck, took cover behind the original getaway car, and engaged them for 2 1/2 minutes of almost uninterrupted gunfire. At least one SWAT officer fired his AR-15 below the cars and wounded Mătăsăreanu in his unprotected lower legs; he was soon unable to continue and desperately put his hands up twice to show surrender.[14] Seconds after his defeat, officers swarmed him to pin him down. As he was being cuffed, SWAT officers asked for his name, to which he simply replied "Pete". When asked if there were anymore suspects, he reportedly laughed and retorted "---- you! Shoot me! Shoot me in the head!"
n this case, approximately 650 rounds were fired at two very heavily armored men, who had fired approximately 1,100 rounds.[2] The responding police officers directed their fire at the "center of mass," or torsos, of Mătăsăreanu and Phillips. Each man was shot and penetrated by at least ten bullets, yet both continued to attack officers.
The police radioed for an ambulance, but Mătăsăreanu, cursing erratically, died before the ambulance reached the scene almost seventy minutes later. Later reports showed that Mătăsăreanu was shot over 20 times in the legs and died from trauma due to excessive blood loss coming from 2 gunshot wounds in the thigh