Wounded Armored Car Driver Now in Coma : Crime: Two suspects in custody name a third they say was the triggerman. One of them was recently fired by the company that employed the guard.

GARDEN GROVE — With two men already in custody, police said Friday that they were seeking a third suspect in the botched robbery of a security guard who was gravely wounded in the head moments after servicing an automatic-teller machine.

The victim, John G. Statkus, 24, of Fullerton, lapsed into a coma late Thursday night and remained in critical condition Friday, according to Elaine Beno, a spokeswoman at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

As police put out an all-points bulletin for the third suspect, family and friends of Statkus remained at the hospital in Orange, spending long hours in the intensive care unit waiting room.

Garden Grove Police Lt. John Woods said officers were looking for 25-year-old Mark Anthony Blount of Pomona. He was described as the gunman by the other two suspects during interviews with detectives, Woods said.

In custody are Gilbert Orlandes Green, 22, and Thomas Anthony Chaney, 28, who live together in the San Bernardino County city of Ontario. Chaney is a recently fired employee of the same security service that employed Statkus.

Each is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail in Orange County Jail, according to Lt. Dick Olson, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman. Their arraignment on attempted murder and robbery charges was scheduled for Monday in Municipal Court in Westminster, officials said.

Joe Allen, a spokesman in New Jersey for the company that employed Statkus and Chaney, confirmed that Chaney had worked for Wells Fargo Armored Car Services, a subsidiary of Baker Industries, which has no relation to Wells Fargo Bank.

Allen said Chaney worked as a driver from Sept. 14, 1990, to May 10, 1991, when he was fired. He declined to discuss Chaney’s termination, except to say it was prompted by his “failure to comply with operating policies and procedures.”

According to police, Statkus was working alone Thursday, restocking the automatic banking machines on his daily route with cash. Tragedy struck in Garden Grove at 7:17 a.m. as he returned to his van after servicing a machine inside a 7-Eleven convenience store at Chapman Avenue and Magnolia Street.

Statkus, a former Marine Corps corporal, was accosted by three men and shot in the head, neck, and twice in the arm, according to police. His attackers did not get any money.

Woods said the three men apparently tried to leave the scene separately--one drove away in a vehicle Woods did not describe; another was driving a 1986 black Volkswagen Rabbit GTI; the third man attempted to escape in Statkus’ van, but abandoned the vehicle when it stalled.

Allen, the spokesman for Wells Fargo Armored Car Services, said the van stalled automatically because the driver did not punch in Statkus’ private security code.

Woods said Chaney and Green were interviewed for 10 hours on Thursday before they were arrested. According to police, the two men admitted their involvement, but accused Blount of firing the shots at Statkus.

“Until we get to talk to all three of them, we don’t know exactly what went down,” Woods said.

Police were still searching Friday for the Volkswagen, registered to Gwendolyn L. Vinson, whom Woods described as Chaney’s girlfriend. A search of Chaney’s home turned up no weapons, including Statkus’ missing .38-caliber revolver.

Meanwhile, news that a fired driver might have been involved in the shooting quickly spread through the La Habra offices of Wells Fargo Armored Car, said Len Lafnear, 25, an employee.

Lafnear and other Wells Fargo employees who waited apprehensively for word on Statkus’ condition said there were indications that Chaney’s departure had been a bitter one.

“We weren’t allowed to let him back in the building,” Lafnear said, adding that he did not believe Statkus was involved in Chaney’s firing.

While the young driver’s condition worsened Friday, his ambush prompted criticism from government officials and a former law enforcement professional about the practice of having one person handle large volumes of cash with no partner. Statkus was working alone when he was shot.

“It’s ludicrous,” said John H. Gier, a longtime Orange County district attorney’s investigator who now operates a private investigative service. “You should have a partner, it’s as simple as that. Hell, there are citizens that get blown away at these ATM machines when they’re going to get $100. You’ve got to have somebody protecting your back.”

Joseph Pogar, a San Francisco-based attorney for the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said: “It certainly seems prudent to have more than one person. . . . The reality is that we have a lot of different kinds of people out there with different needs for money.”

Yet federal law does not regulate the circumstances under which automatic teller machines located away from banks--such as at convenience stores--are replenished with cash.

“There’s no regulation that governs the loading and unloading of money from these machines,” said Dean DeBuck, a spokesman in Washington for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, whose mission is to ensure the “safety and soundness” of the national banking system.

Kim Leslie Shafer, counsel to the Senate banking subcommittee on consumer and regulatory affairs, said there is no legislation “on the horizon” that would change federal policy.

“This is a new situation,” she said, adding that banks “have plenty of motive” for providing adequate security.

Allen declined to discuss the security firm’s working conditions.

Woods said Wells Fargo Armored Car Services is offering a reward for Blount’s arrest. Anyone with information about Blount’s whereabouts is urged to call Garden Grove Police Detective Marty Donahue at (714) 741-5836 during weekday business hours. Evening or weekend calls can be made to (714) 741-5704.