Man Wielding Broomstick Is Slain in Face-Off With Robbers

A former Marine who grabbed a broomstick and rushed to the aid of a co-worker who was being robbed outside a newspaper distribution center in Pomona was shot and killed early Wednesday by the robbers, authorities said.

Terry Bohlen, 45, a supervisor for Los Angeles Times home delivery carriers in Pomona, died of two chest wounds moments after the 12:27 a.m. shooting. His killers are being sought, police said.

The murder followed a similar robbery Tuesday, when two youths confronted employees at the same distribution center in an industrial park in the 2600 block of Pomona Boulevard, police said. A wallet was taken in that robbery, but no one was hurt.

Don Watkins, who operates the center under contract with The Times, said operations would be temporarily shifted to another location as a precaution. Watkins said eight months ago he hired Bohlen, a former Times driver who, until 1991, had worked for seven years in Orange County and downtown Los Angeles. Bohlen worked nightly supervising workers who inserted advertising sections into the paper in preparation for the carriers’ arrival at 2 a.m.

On Wednesday, two young men, one armed with a gun, approached an 18-year-old woman who was sitting in a parked car waiting for her uncle to finish work at the center, Detective John Holzberger said. The girl’s screams drew the uncle, who was hit over the head by the gunman. When Bohlen rushed out, he was shot and the assailants jumped a fence and fled into a nearby residential neighborhood, the detective said.

“Only a Marine would go out there with a broomstick,” Watkins said.

Bohlen, the father of two children, was separated from his wife.