Police Never Moved to Stop Robbery, Woman Testifies : Crime: Only after holdup did she learn they had been waiting outside restaurant, she says. Three of the four robbers were killed by officers, who are now being sued.

A former night manager of a Sunland McDonald’s testified in federal court Tuesday that she waited 15 minutes for police to come after she dialed 911 to report that she saw men trying to break into her closed restaurant.

But the police never came to her rescue, Robbin Cox said. Instead, the four robbers broke into the restaurant where she was alone and threatened to “blow (her) brains out” if she did not give them the combination of the safe.

Cox, 23, said she learned after the Feb. 12, 1990, robbery was over and she was left unharmed that 21 Los Angeles police officers were waiting outside the restaurant the entire time but had not stopped the incident.

The officers moved in after the robbers left the restaurant and opened fire, killing three of them. Police alleged that the robbers brandished weapons.

Cox testified in U.S. District Court in the trial of the civil rights lawsuit filed against the police by the families of the three dead men and the one survivor, who was wounded. The lawsuit alleges that the officers, all members of the Special Investigations Section, opened fire without cause and that the robbers were not armed when they were shot.

Though Cox herself is suing the police for negligence in the case, she was called to testify as a defense witness. Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent said he sought her testimony to show the jurors what the police were up against, “that these were violent people, not nice guys.”

Cox calmly described how the robbers grabbed her, blindfolded her and marched her to the rear of the restaurant where she was forced to give them the combination to a safe.

At one point, Cox said, one of the robbers thought she had given them the wrong combination. He ran up to her, pressed the barrel of the gun against her temple and said, “ ‘What’s the combination? Don’t mess with us.’ They said they were going to blow my brains out. . . . I gave them the same combination.”

After the robbers left and she heard shooting outside, she learned that members of the SIS had been outside and had canceled the response of patrol cars to her 911 call.

SIS officers have previously testified in the 2-month-old trial that they did not move in to stop the robbery because the four men were spread out outside the restaurant and it would have been unsafe. The officers also testified that they did not think the robbers were going to break into the restaurant.

Stephen Yagman, the plaintiffs’ attorney, has sought to prove that the officers had both probable cause and enough time to make arrests but chose to allow the robbery to proceed in a way that purposely would end in a shooting. U.S. District Judge J. Spence Letts ruled Tuesday that evidence so far in the case shows there was probable cause to make the arrests before the robbery.

In her lawsuit, Cox has accused the SIS officers of negligence and violating her own rights for not arresting the robbers before they broke into the restaurant. She is also suing Alfredo Olivas, the lone surviving robber.

Mention of her lawsuit and other details potentially damaging to the police officers’ case were revealed during questioning of Cox by Yagman.

Cox testified that she has been questioned about the case by the FBI. While she did not elaborate, it was the first mention in front of the jury of the ongoing federal investigation of the shooting. Yagman’s efforts to subpoena an FBI agent to testify about the investigation have so far failed.

During her testimony, Cox also described how she was near the employee time-card clock during most of the episode and therefore was sure that the robbers did not break in until at least 15 minutes after her 911 call.

In bringing up Cox’s lawsuit, Yagman asked her why she was suing the officers.

“Because they could have stopped the whole thing,” Cox replied.