Townhouses Sealed Off in Manhunt

SEAL BEACH — Residents of a massive townhouse complex were forced to stay in their homes for more than eight hours Friday while police SWAT teams searched door to door--unsuccessfully--for three men who had fled after a bank robbery nearby.

Police sealed off the Rossmoor Townhouse complex on Montecito Road shortly after the 11 a.m. robbery, trapping dozens of people who were told to remain locked in their apartments and preventing about 200 residents from returning to their homes until the search was completed after 8 p.m.

In the robbery, two men wearing ski masks and armed with shotguns entered the Bank of America at 12171 Seal Beach Blvd., ordered employees to lie on the ground, and pistol-whipped a teller.

The robbers dropped a money bag when it exploded with red dye but escaped in a black Jeep Cherokee, driven by a third man, and were chased by police to an alley behind the Rossmoor Townhouse complex, where they jumped out of the vehicle and, police said, fled into the buildings.