Husband of bank robbery victim protests Cheetos ad

VENTURA, Calif. — When Floyd Leech saw the latest TV commercial for Cheetos, it hit a nerve.

In the ad, Chester the Cheetos cheetah is working as a teller when two masked gunmen enter the bank and demand money. Chester, who’s busy snacking on Cheetos, tells them he’s busy and to try another teller. He flicks a rubber band at them.

"It’s just repulsive," said Leech, a service manager for an auto repair shop in Camarillo. "It’s repulsive they could think it’s fun and entertaining. It’s not."

On April 28, 1997, Leech’s wife, Monica Lynne Leech, 39, the mother of two children, was fatally shot in the back of the head during a bank robbery in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Monica Leech, a teller at what was then Western Financial Savings Bank on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, was one of four employees at work. The gunmen entered the bank about 10:15 a.m. and handcuffed the staff. They ordered Leech and another employee to take them to the safe at the back of the bank.

Having emptied the teller drawers and taken cash from the safe, one robber shot her as she was kneeling on the vault floor.

"She was released to open the safe, and when they got what they wanted, they killed her," Floyd Leech said.

Retired Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks, who was a chief deputy in 1997, said at the time that the killing was "absolutely unprovoked."

The crime drew national media attention. A reward was offered, but the robbers have never been caught.

Floyd Leech has emailed letters opposing the commercial to Frito-Lay, asking the company to take it off the air. Other family members have tried calling the company, a division of PepsiCo Americas Foods.

The only response Leech said he has received is an email from Frito-Lay Consumer Relations, thanking him for his feedback and saying the company did not intend any offense. The objective, the letter says, "is to present our products in fun and entertaining ways."

Leech now is calling for a boycott of Frito-Lay products to try to persuade the company to drop the commercial.

"I just want it off the air," he said this week. "Bank robbery is a very serious thing, and it’s not something to be joked about.

"They’re not willing to pull it, and I’m trying to do what I can to get it pulled. I have friends and family with me who buy their products. Monica’s folks, her brother, her sister and children are onboard with it."

Leech added that he’s sure anyone who has been a victim of armed robbery, or who knows or has lost someone as the result of one, would feel the same. He says he’s seen similar comments on the Cheetos Facebook page.

In response to a request for comment, Alexia Allina, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Frito-Lay, acknowledged Tuesday that the company has received Leech’s complaint and a couple of other calls about the commercial.

The ad is only being aired on television and is not available online, either on the Cheetos Facebook page or YouTube channel, she said.

"At this point we do not have any plans to stop running the spot," Allina said. "But it is being looked into."