Lake Forest bank robbed by man wearing soft arm cast

A man who claimed to have a gun made off with money after robbing a bank in Lake Forest on Monday, Sept. 24, officials said.

The man entered the Wells Fargo branch in the Stater Bros. grocery store at 22351 El Toro Rd. just after 7 p.m., said Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

She said he threatened to shoot a bank employee unless he was handed a large sum of money. He then commanded everyone in the bank to gather near the back of the establishment, near the vault.

The robber was in and out of the bank in a matter of minutes, Braun said. She said deputies established a perimeter around the site of the incident, but as of 9 p.m. they had not found the robber.

It was not immediately clear how much the man got away with, but Braun described it as a “large amount of money.”

Braun described the suspect as a white man with a soft cast over one of his arms who was wearing a burgundy or maroon shirt, a black hat and black pants. She added that it was not immediately clear whether the suspect escaped in a vehicle or on foot, but investigators plan to review surveillance footage and were interviewing witnesses on Monday evening.

The Sheriff Department’s Bank Robbery Apprehension team was handling the investigation.