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Los Angeles: On November 2, 2011, at around 11:40 p.m., Rampart Division officers responded to a radio call of an “Assault suspect armed with a gun” at a hotel located in the 300 block of
N. Vermont Avenue. When the officer’s arrived, they saw a man on the ground being held by two citizens.

Shortly before police arrived, the desk clerk at a local hotel took notice of a man with a back pack who walked into the lobby and began to suspiciously look around. He asked the clerk about the price of a room, and then pointed a gun at him and demanded money. The suspect walked around the counter where the clerk stood and told him to open the cash register. The clerk, fearing he was going to be shot, opened the register and gave the suspect money.

During the robbery, an elevator door opened, and two hotel guests who happened to be martial arts experts visiting Los Angeles from Oregon for a martial arts’ tournament heard the clerk’s cry for help and immediately took action. The pair grabbed the suspect who was holding a gun in his right hand. During the tussle with the suspect, the Good Samaritans repeatedly asked him to drop the gun and stop struggling. The pair was finally able to wrestle the gun from the suspect and took him to the ground with a leg sweep and then held him on the ground until Rampart Division officers arrived.

The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Luis Rosales, a resident of Los Angeles, was taken into custody without further incident. In addition, a loaded 9mm handgun and the money taken from the cash register were found inside Rosales’ backpack. Rosales was booked for armed robbery with a firearm. His bail is set at $101,250.

San Francisco Bay Area martial arts legend Al Novak, who influenced movie icon Bruce Lee, died Saturday in a Fremont hospital after he was hit last week by a car while sitting in his wheelchair, friends said.

Novak, a Great Grandmaster and last surviving 10th degree black belt in the kajukenbo self-defence style, was in his late 80s. The Fremont resident broke down racial barriers once inherent in the sport, growing up training in San Francisco’s Chinatown, unheard of for a Caucasian in the 1920s and ’30s.

“He was beloved by everybody,” said Greg Lee, whose father, James Lee, was a business partner of Novak’s and Bruce Lee, Hollywood’s first martial arts star who died tragically in 1973. “When you’re a grandmaster, it means you’ve incorporated your own manoeuvres and changed other things around and developed an art, and that’s what Al did.”

Novak’s martial arts career spanned more than 50 years, according to a profile on usadojo.com. He became so accomplished that Bruce Lee would not spar with him publicly, according to the website.

Novak was confined to a wheelchair in 2005 after the van in which he was riding in as a passenger crashed. Both his femurs were crushed.

Even though he could not walk, he still split blocks of wood at the martial arts school he ran in Fremont and commanded enough respect that black belt recipients in their respective arts often wanted Novak to sign their certificates, said friend Jeff Finder.

Novak served on a PT boat during the Second World War, training alongside future U.S. president John F. Kennedy.

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Hotel Robber Nabbed by Good Samaritans Visiting Los Angeles for Martial Arts Tournament

Martial arts legend Al Novak passes away