The State - News from Feb. 17, 1986

Combinations of locks at San Francisco’s U.S. Mint were found in the auto of a purse-snatching suspect arrested after a high-speed chase that damaged four police cars and ended with a tire flattened by a shotgun blast. Ricky Lee, 28, a former San Francisco area high school basketball star, was a temporary employee of the mint whose officials ordered an inquiry into why he was allowed to have sensitive information. Nothing was taken from the vaults, but notebooks containing partial combinations to some of the main vaults were discovered in Lee’s car. However, entry into the vaults would have been impossible without combinations held by at least one other person. Mint officials ordered the combinations involved to be changed. Lee was arrested when police chased his car after it ran a red light.