Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 30 - The Big Number

[Music] ladies and gentlemen the story you're about to see is true the names have been changed to protect the innocent this is the city los angeles california i work here i'm a cop it was monday january 25th was warm in los angeles we were working the day watch out a robbery division my partner is frank smith the boss is captain donahoe my name's friday i just gotten back from lunch and it looked like it was going to be another quiet afternoon hi hi how was your lunch okay you know i'd eat with you but i just can't eat hot dogs five days in a row well we don't have to do it anymore hmm i got the sign you did huh yeah i've been eating at the penny arcade because i knew ernie was gonna take out his dart game today he took the sign down that's very nice i gave him a buck for it how do you like it looks very good what are you gonna do put in a dart game no it's for my kid well he's gonna put in the dark game no joe he sells lemonade he's gonna add tarts oh i see you think i can make this d into a t no no i think so just cross it over there on the top and paint out that bottom part yeah that's very nice when does he sell this stuff saturday and sunday way i suppose makes all this stuff for him doesn't she no he makes it all himself well how's your boy five and a half well if i'm over in the neighborhood sunday i'll drop by and buy some stuff from him huh good he'll like that and joe just buy the lemonade he makes that real good what do you mean he makes the tarts out of mud hot one adt-211 211 bank robbery in progress it took us a little over four minutes to get to the bank at the corner of lebanon and broadway in that time the bandit had completed the robbery and made goodies a escape card arrived at the scene and the officers had gotten a description of the car end of the bandit they'd call the information into communications and the broadcast was gotten out to all cars in the vicinity to be on the alert for the hold up man i couldn't help it what did you want me to do if i tried to stop him and he'd shot that gun off he had killed half the people you should have actually tried to stop him i'm always saying there must have been something you could have done you just stood there and looked at him there must have been something or gibson don't just stand there stop these things police officers you see gibson they're police officers have you a badge or something yes sir here's my identification oh yes mr fryday that's right this is my partner frank smith i saw that on his card you'd like to ask me a lot of questions yes sir we would you'd like to talk in my office i guess i'll be fine would you mind if gibson came along i'd like to have him see how a couple of real detectives work yeah so that'll be all right fine right in here oh mr friday this is gibson my bank guard and i use the term loosely gibson is mr jones smith smith gibson smith just sit down anywhere thank you thank you you stand up and listen yes sir what is your answer clifford allen i'm the bank manager and what's your first name leon gibson understand you're a bank guard of course he's not not officially his little idea of mine undercover he's not a real bank guard all right sir if you'd like to tell us what happened here it was just three o'clock gibson was putting up the chain across the door you know to keep the people out yes sir gibson was out there i was in here in my office so go ahead tell the officers about it yes sir well he parked his car right in front of the bank when he pulled up i thought it was a customer trying to get in before the bank closed i held a chain for him that was nice of you what happened then gibson as soon as he got to the doorway i saw the shotgun had it kind of under his coat i tried to stop him but he had the gun pointed right at me he said that if i made a move he'd as soon shoot his look at me now you're sure it was a shotgun yeah it was a 12 gauge sawed off he told me to get over into the little alcove near the entrance to our escrow department i did and he told me to hand over my gun did you no sir mr allen won't let me carry one ah i did what he told me what happened then he asked me where the manager was he pointed out his office well now up to this time did any of the people in the bank have any idea what was going on no sir the way the hold up man acted he knew what he was doing there wasn't anything i could do i kept thinking about the people in the bank that shotgun didn't want anyone to get hurt only bright thing he did all right would you like to go on what happened then like i said he asked where the manager's office was and i showed him he told me that he wanted me to come back here with him he put the shotgun under his coat nobody in the bank saw it and that's where i came into it he just walked in told me it was a stickup he had this little leather bag kind of like a doctor uses he opened it up and told me to walk out in front of him yes sir made me carry the bag kept the gun at my back all the time i could feel it made me walk down the row of windows the ones into the telus boxes did he touch anything at all did you notice no sir he wore gloves all the time at each window he said for the teller to be quiet after i got the money from the tellers and put it into the bag he told him that they made a sound he'd kill me and then come back and kill them too thought it was terrible almost scared me to death yes sir who was it that turned in the alarm walter the cleanup man he was in the back of the bank and he came out of the vice president's office and saw the robber then he sneaked back into the room and called you and it just barely got out of the place when the police car pulled up we gave the other officers a description of the car on the bandit yeah we heard the broadcast all the cars in the area have been alerted i wonder if i could have a drink of water officer i'm so nervous my stomach's going to be grinding for a month surely you're a member of the federal reserve aren't you oh yes that means the federal bureau of investigation will be brought into it too yes sir freshwater gibson you bet ulcers yes sir would your gentleman like some no no no i would mr allen you buy your own pills tell me gibson just what have you done in the five months you've been with us well sir i want all those bowling trophies you can't catch those of window three what happened after the man finished taking all the money from the cages he walked out of the front of the place and got this car by that time i could hear the sirens of the police car coming did he say anything when he went out yeah said that if we told anything about him he'd come back and kill us yeah and he looked right at me when he said it you've got to give me some sort of protection i'm not going to make a sitting duck of myself yes sir we'll take care of that could you give us a description of the man i've already given it to the other officers we know sir we'd like to have it again how tall would you say he was oh about five feet eleven maybe six how about his age uh thirty thirty five round in there mm-hmm how much you think he weighed well about 160 pounds maybe more i'm not very good at guessing weights was he dark or light complected oh light he had real light blonde hair his eyebrows were almost invisible there was a light that you almost couldn't see them at all same with his eyelashes i see now how about his clothes i beg your pardon his clothes what was he wearing he had on a blue shirt i'm sorry sir but i think it was a white shirt was it no i'm sure it was blue i remember because he was wearing a brown coat and i thought that he certainly didn't have very good taste what was wearing a blue shirt and a brown coat no gibson the shirt was blue no tie the brown coat and black loafer shoes i remember those because they were the only thing that looked good they looked like those ones that are advertised in magazines you know uh skegens or something like that black yes sir had those little uh castle things on them anything else about him what well anything else it might cause you to remember him to know him if you saw him again well there were the bandages what when he came in he had bandages on his face one over his uh right eyebrow another one on his chin right right here sort of on the throat kind of you mean regular bandages no they were those adhesive kind you know with the gauze and the tape all together i see i still think it was a white shirt blue are you trying to say that i don't know blue when i see it no sir i just think that you might have made a mistake mr friday yes sir it was a blue shirt how about his car where was it it was parked right out in front did you see it certainly i saw it i was standing right in the door when he drove away what if he can describe it for us yes like i told the other officers it was a late model buick dark blue a coupee i'm sorry sir but it was a green ford sedan i don't know what you're trying to prove with these officers after the way you handled the affair there's no use you trying to impress them with your prowess as a detective it was a dark blue buick coupe anything unusual about the car that you could see any dented fenders stickers windshield emblems anything at all like that no i didn't notice anything special no sir looked pretty new as far as i could tell all right fine well you two gentlemen have helped us a lot we'd like to talk some other people here in the bank we could yes that's what the other officer said i told all the help to stay yes sir fine you want to talk to them in here feel free to use the office no sir that's all right we can see them outside i'm gonna leave you one of our cards mr allen if you think of anything else let us know will you fine i'll be here thank you i wonder if i could have a card too you don't need one officers would you mind stepping over here okay no i think we'd better move over here how's this no yes this will be fine all right what's on your mind i didn't want to tell you while we were in there he'd probably make some remark yeah i didn't tell the other officers either it's about the license number of the bandit's car did you get it not all of it sir just the first three numbers i see i didn't tell the other officers this i saved it for you your detectives okay also the bandit had a piece of cloth wrapped around the license plate as he drove away the wind blew the cloth aside i saw three numbers good may i give this to him sure i hope i did good officers you did fine thanks gibson one of your cards [Music] [Music] in the company of fbi agent tom ashford we talked to the rest of the employees in the bank from them we got a fairly good description of the hold up man and his car they agreed that it was a late model dark colored ford sedan frank and i went back to the office and made arrangements for another team of detectives to help us in checking out the information we had 9 46 that night frank and i went to our dmv while agent tom ashford checked the records of the department of motor vehicles downtown it took us eight hours to go through the possible 10 000 numbers each card had to be checked for similarity of car make and model each car in the immediate area was listed then each car in the entire state each of them had to be checked out hi how'd you do big job there's a list huh half of my typewritten girl had to go home i wrote the rest top itself yeah big list yeah i never knew there were so many cars in california let alone that money in the los angeles area with license 1u5 how's luck joe that's a total well i'll tell you we got a place to start yeah 302 names [Music] 9 a.m frank and i met in the robbery office we talked to lieutenant stoner and he assigned four other teams of men to work with us the fbi had also assigned additional agents the list of possibles was divided up and we began to check them out [Music] we spent three days on it in each instance we didn't talk to the person involved directly but to their neighbors [Music] we didn't explain what it was that we were after merely that we were conducting an investigation we ran into the usual false leads the usual petty jealousies and the neighborhood feuds it all served to slow us down and make the job more difficult [Music] there'd been no replies to the local or the apb that we've gotten out on the car or the bandit the staff's office had come up with two possibles on the mo these were both checked out but they let us know where we went back to checking out the license plate numbers february 8th the names on the list were down to seven the next one was a mr ivan q field we rang the bell to the house next door yeah sorry to bother you ma'am police officers what if we could talk to you police what's this about i haven't done anything no ma'am not you we'd like to ask you some questions about your next-door neighbor mr field i should have known a couple of times i came close to calling in about a myself miserable man what if we come inside be a little better than talking out here but you just bet you can come right on in i'll tell you what you want to know no no no no no that chair goes over there i'll take a party let's move the furniture around it's better for talking i want this city over here you two boys can do that yes ma'am get busy young man no no no no you sit here that's your chair that one's for him thank you i'll put your chair around you can join us there now isn't this better yes ma'am now what do you want to know what's your name ma'am mabel hartford all right miss hartford we're conducting an investigation there are a few things we'd like to know about mr field uh-huh well you don't have to play cozy with me i know what kind of people they are can't understand it either what do you mean man i said i couldn't understand that his brother's so nice real gentlemen seems hard to believe that even be related let alone be brothers nothing but trouble ever since him and his wife moved in you mean it's not their house course not i don't think either one of them could afford the rent on a one-room apartment much less that house would you know if they have a car no not them like i said i don't think he's ever worked just lives off his brother his brother has a car real nice what kind of a car is it ma'am do you know yes it's a ford you know what model model yes ma'am is it a cooper sedan sea dan real nice sort of dark green only i guess it really isn't dark but then it really isn't light just green pretty though yes ma'am you know if mr field is home right now well yes i think so i saw him in the backyard couple hours ago him and his wife she was tiptoeing around in one of them skimpy little sunsuits terrible no decency at all i tell you officer neither one of them's any good yes ma'am well let's smoke it up i got some here too thank you there's a light thanks oh thank you right miss hartford i wonder if you can tell us what mr field does for a living you mean does he work that's right no at least i've never seen any indication that he does all he does is just sit around the yard and throw rocks at my cats terrible that's what i was going to call you about officer isn't there a law or something about throwing things at poor dumb animals yes ma'am there is of course cats aren't really dumb lots of times i think they're a lot smarter than some people i know could you describe ivan field sure he's kind of a little man not very tall but how tall man well maybe five feet seven uh-huh what about his coloring i mean his hair yes ma'am stop very dark well it lets us out yeah it looks that way doesn't it well thank you very much ma'am sorry to cause you any trouble there's no trouble at all you can arrest him now no ma'am well why not what about the rocks and my cats well i think the spc are the people you want to talk to well all right but i'll tell you right now mr field isn't going to like it he likes my cats he isn't going to like the idea at all when he hears about it just wait till he gets home i'll tell him about how his brother's been acting just a minute man yes you mean that the man living next door now isn't ivan field no i didn't say it was it's his brother anthony his brother what's going on here first you ask a lot of questions about mr field and then i tell you that he isn't home he and his wife went back east for the holidays they haven't come back yet while he was gone he said that his brother could use the house i thought at first it'd be nice but then i found out anthony's nothing like his brother nothing at all well what does this anthony field look like why you wanna know about everybody don't you well i would sure like a description of anthony field that's all well he's taller than ivan anthony must be close to six feet and he doesn't look anything like ivan ivan's dark anthony's life his hair almost doesn't have any color real blonde how long ago they move in let's see elizabeth that's my persian elizabeth had her last litter in december december the 12th anthony and his wife moved in the next morning i remember that because i was almost tonight with elizabeth she didn't need me awfully independent but it was the morning they moved in i remember it well elizabeth had six little kittens it was december the 13th when anthony moved in i see have they been using ivan field's car my yes hardly a day goes by with what they don't drive it somewhere i wonder if we could use your phone man phone phone phone i don't tell me anybody yes it's right there on the table in the hall thank you i'll check the name through r and i right could you tell us why this anthony field has any marks or scars now let me see i think so seems that i saw him and his wife out in the backyard one day he was wearing swimming trunks and she was in one of those sun suits i told you about disgraceful yes ma'am well it seems to me that he had a scar on his leg yes just above the knee i think it was the right leg no ma'am what i meant was does he have any marks or scars on his face like on his forehead or on his chin maybe oh no no marks all right wait a minute the other day i noticed he had a cup right over his right eyebrow looks like he'd be in the fight probably a drunken brawl joe anything yeah well thank you very much miss hartford you've been a great help we'll be checking back with you fine good night good night good night well where are you going i beg your pardon we've got to put the furniture back i won't be having any company for a whole week uh uh a little more than that don't you remember surely that's good my you have a good memory good night ma'am good night there now isn't this better how about it i talked to swan no record on ivan field yeah they paroled an anthony field from q how about the description checks out when they parole him december 10th last year yeah did a term for [Music] robbery [Applause] tuesday february 8th to utilize whatever evidence we might find in the house for the government's prosecution of the case a search warrant was obtained to allow agent tom ashford to enter the house the men from robbery arrived and the plan for taking field was formulated because of phil's description his past record and the fact that the car he drove matched the one used in the hold up he had become our prime suspect a working detective knows that to successfully apprehend an armed and potentially dangerous suspect he must act quickly and employ the one big advantage on his side the element of surprise by moving rapidly before the suspect becomes aware of any act to apprehend him the officer in many cases cannot only avoid bloodshed but can have a better chance of preserving any and all physical evidence necessary to prosecute 8 14 p.m we were ready to move in all set joe good lights are still on there's no indication he knows we're here let's hope it stays that way officer mr friday keep your voice down we don't want people to know we're here i'm not talking now there's something i want to tell you all right please will you go back in your house and stay there till this is over well that's sort of what i want to tell you what's that well i got to thinking i figured maybe anthony wasn't such a bad sort after all right fine ms hartford now i don't mean to be rude but get back in your house and stay there we keep making all this noise he's gonna know we're here but that's just it i don't want anybody to get hurt so i called you know what i called him and told him he didn't have a chance he should give himself up [Music] unknowingly mrs hartford had made it impossible to take the suspect without violence by warning him she'd put him on the alert we had no alternative now but to apprehend him as best we could [Music] all right come on on your feet hands behind your head what are you trying to do come on you've been this way before i move get it up there he's clean joe gonna tell us about it it's my money i can do what i want with it you keep believing that we got the money and the people who can identify you car parked in the driveway fits the description you got out of queue on december 10th you pulled this job january 25th we got you made right down the line i fell once i did my time you got nothing more yeah sure this wife found her hide in the back bedroom looks like shotgun he used sit down lady you guys are fishing you got nothing yeah those witnesses could be wrong you know where do you hear him [Music] on february 19th trial was held in united states district court state of california in a moment the results of that trial the suspect was tried and convicted of violation of the federal bank robbery statute and was sentenced to 20 years in a federal penitentiary [Music] further investigation showed that the suspect's wife doran nancy field was not implicated in any way in the robbery of the bank no charges were made against her so hey you

Channel: The Film Detective

Views: 360,368

Keywords: Film, tv, Classic TV Show, TV, Movies, Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 30 - The Big Number, Jack Webb, Ben Alexander, Olan Soule, Vic Perrin

Id: C7gcpKx7wXM

Length: 26min 20sec (1580 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018