Shot Rings Out: Guard, His Dream Lie Dead

A. J. Rhodes may have been 68 years old, but he was “a heck of a lot sharper” than some of the younger security guards who worked for the Business Security Guard Service, his supervisor, 23-year-old Scott Tweedy, said in his Bellflower office Wednesday.

“He was tough,” Tweedy added, “probably the best officer we had.”

Rhodes was also due to retire in a matter of weeks. A religious man who lived with his wife, Ruth, in a neatly kept house in South Los Angeles, “A. J.,” as he was known, told people he wanted to get a mobile home, put it on a piece of country land and raise chickens.

“It was a dream, I guess,” Tweedy said.

But on Tuesday night, Rhodes was shot and killed with his own gun while assigned by his company to guard Fine’s Food Center, a market on East Olympic Boulevard. He died at the scene.

According to Los Angeles Police Department Detective Ben Lovato, Rhodes was standing at the rear of Fine’s, when a gunman, wearing blue jeans, tennis shoes and a dark jacket, wrestled away his gun and shot him in the upper chest.

“The suspect then approached one of the cashiers and, pointing two guns, demanded money,” Lovato said. “For some unknown reason, the suspect then just ran out of the market, jumped in a waiting vehicle and sped off.”

No arrests have been made.

Rhodes had been reassigned from another security post to Fine’s three weeks ago, Tweedy said, adding that the death was the first security guard to be killed since the company started 10 years ago. Business Security employs about 40 guards, according to the company president, Merrill Barry.

Rhodes, who had been a guard for two years, “never complained,” Tweedy noted, even volunteering for the more dangerous guarding jobs. He would not say if Fine’s, located just east of downtown, was considered what his company calls a “hot spot.”

“He’d say I don’t mind taking the hot spots,” Tweedy said. “He used to tell me you could get killed going to church on Sunday.”