[scooter2]

Yes, I know this is a vanity post, but I can't find the needed info.

[cavtrooper21]

If I remember correctly, they were modified using handmade parts.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I think they were converted SKS's. At any rate a little marksmanship on behalf of PD would have shortened the whole ordeal.

[eXe]

All I could find was this..

http://www.vpc.org/studies/wgun970228.htm

Where'd They Get Their Guns?
An Analysis of the Firearms Used in High-Profile Shootings, 1963 to 2001
Date: February 28, 1997

Location: North Hollywood, California

Alleged Shooters: Emil Dechebal Matasareanu and Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr.

People Killed: Two (shooters killed by police)

People Injured: 16

Firearm(s): Multiple fully automatic assault rifles including an AK-47 type


Circumstances

On February 28, 1997, Matasareanu and Phillips tried to rob a Bank of America branch office in North Hollywood, California. While trying to escape, the two men engaged in a shootout with police. Though vastly outnumbered, the two men—armed with automatic weapons and wearing body armor—successfully held off law enforcement personnel for hours before being shot and killed by police.


How Firearm(s) Acquired

The weapons were originally bought at a gun show and then illegally resold to Matasareanu and Phillips.



I will keep looking on how they got them to auto. No info on that here. Don't know how reliable the site I got this info from was..

[GOP_1900AD]

A couple of months ago I recall the find of a fairly significant cache nearby, I think in Chatsworth or Van Nuys. My guesses as to source - NORINCO / PLA, Red Mafiya or Mexican Drug Cartels.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

There are different opinions about this. I believe that they were part of the first "Chinese DNC Donor" shipment of full-auto, short barreled AKS's. The shipment that wasn't intercepted by U.S. Customs. There also is still some debate over whether or not they jammed as first reported or merely ran out of ammo.

Full discussion:

Rec.Guns: LA Shootout-What Guns?

Rec.Guns: LA Shootout-What Guns?(2)

[coloradan]

I don't know how they got the guns, but there ought to be a federal law requiring all bank robberies use full-autos. For all the spraying and praying the perps did, there were zero fatalities resulting. If they had only had a single shot bolt-action rifle, they might have taken the trouble to aim, and might have killed somebody.

[archy]

A listing of the material taken by police in their October 23 1993 arrest can be found *here* The *AK47-type rifles were a Chinese Poly-tec and a MAK90; the 7.62 HK91 had been modified to selective fire using parts from a Mexican army G3 rifle, probably so modified in Mexico. Whether the parts for the similar modifications to the AKs were done by the same source is a matter of conjecture, but logical; but 75-round drums similar to those used by Phillips and Matasareanu are very common and in use by many of the various Mexican police agencies, and were also a fixture in the May 24 1999 murder of Mexican Archbishop Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo, killed at the Guadalajara airport when the Cardinal arrived to welcome the apostolic nuncio in Mexico, Archbishop Girolamo Prigione. That's certainly no *proof* that the Phillips and Matasareanu weapons , including tear gas and *flashbang* hand grenades came from corrupt police sources in either Mexico or the US, but it's certainly possible.

[Shooter 2.5]

Bang