Off-Duty Officer Kills Gunman : Bullet Halts Holdup at Buena Park Bank

An off-duty Compton policeman Thursday shot and killed a would-be bank robber who allegedly had escaped from a Garden Grove halfway house on Jan. 21, Buena Park police said.

Authorities said the slain man, Steven D. Smallwood, 27, had been convicted of robbing the same Buena Park bank twice before.

The off-duty officer, Paul Wing, 25, was at the Wells Fargo Bank branch, at 8781 Knott Ave., about 2:15 p.m. when Smallwood, wearing a ski mask, entered the bank through a side door, according to Buena Park police spokesman Terry Branum.

When Smallwood brandished a .38-caliber revolver and announced, “This is a robbery, nobody move!” Wing pulled his 9-millimeter automatic pistol and identified himself as a police officer, Branum said.

Branum said Smallwood fired first, shooting twice and missing both times. One bullet shattered a front window, the other lodged in a desk. Wing then fired once, hitting the man in the shoulder before his gun jammed, Branum said.

About 30 people were inside the bank, but no one else was injured. Smallwood staggered out to the parking lot and collapsed. He was taken to Buena Park Community Hospital, where he died within the hour.

Smallwood had been convicted of robbing the same bank on two other occasions, as well as several other banks, said Branum, but investigators couldn’t provide details.

“He had been serving time for bank robbery when he was transferred to the My Break Transitional Center (the halfway house),” Branum said. “And he just walked away on Jan. 21.” Workers at the commitment center refused to comment.

Wing, who has been with the Compton department 4 1/2 years and spent two years as a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy before that, was taken to the Buena Park Police Department, where he was questioned by detectives and district attorney’s investigators and released.

An FBI spokesman said Smallwood had a long record of bank robberies going back to 1980. “We knew him well.”