Guard Killed in Armed Holdup at DMV Office

Two gunmen waiting inside a busy Department of Motor Vehicle office on the Eastside shot and killed an armored car courier Tuesday and escaped with a money bag, Los Angeles police said.

The latest in half a dozen armored car holdups in the Los Angeles area in the last year was played out in front of 50 to 60 state employees and customers at the DMV office at 3529 N. Mission Drive, across from Lincoln Park.

Identity of the slain Federal Armored Express guard was not disclosed.

“It was horrible,” said Linda Hernandez, 42, a Highland Park resident who was waiting to get license tags. “I grabbed my daughter and ran outside. Somebody yelled, ‘Get the license number,’ and I saw a red car drive away.”

When they heard the shots, dozens of people waiting in line ducked, hit the floor or ran into the restrooms, witnesses said.

Trini Esteves, 64, who lives in nearby Boyle Heights, said he saw one of the robbers place a pistol close to the guard’s neck and fire. Then, the witness said, the two men ran outside with the money bag and leaped into a “new red car.”

“It appears that the guard had no warning,” said robbery-homicide Lt. Bob Ruchhoft.

The courier never had a chance to pull his own gun, and the driver of the armored car stayed in the truck, as required by company policy.

Ruchhoft said the red-and-black armored truck pulled up to the DMV office shortly before 1 p.m., and an armed guard got out, carried a bag inside and picked up another containing an undisclosed amount of cash and checks.

As the guard approached the rear door on his way back, Ruchhoft said, one of the waiting robbers shot him in the back and then fired a bullet into his head.

The money bag apparently was grabbed by a second robber, Ruchhoft said, and the two men ran to a car, possibly a 1987 Toyota Supra, that may have been driven by a third person.

Witnesses provided a license number, but “we’re not sure how good it is,” Ruchhoft said.

The two robbers were described as Latinos in their late 20s, 5-feet-6 to 5-feet-7 and “skinny.” One of them had shoulder-length black hair, combed straight back, Ruchhoft said.

After an extensive air and ground search, Sgt. George Spitzer of the Hollenbeck Division station said three men were arrested, questioned and released when it was determined that they were not involved in the slaying.

DMV spokesman Bill Gengler said a state police officer is normally posted at the DMV office, but he did not know what action, if any, the officer took.

“I don’t think there was an opportunity to do much,” he said.

James L. Dunbar, chief executive of Baltimore-based Federal Armored Express, last year described Los Angeles as a “hotbed of armored car robberies.”

Last March, a robber shot an armored car guard to death in a Lakewood supermarket and then fatally wounded himself. The guard, John Allen Stoddart, 25, of Santa Ana worked for Armored Transport of California.

Seven people were wounded in a shoot-out between an armored car courier and a robber in a Wells Fargo Bank in the Crenshaw shopping district last May.

In July, two gunmen exchanged shots with an armored car guard and escaped with an unknown amount of money at the Fox Hills Mall in Culver City.

At Christmastime, a Brink’s guard shot and killed a holdup man in a shoot-out inside an electronics store in Koreatown. A second robber escaped with the money bag.

Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson and Hector Tobar contributed to this story.