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Group Calls for Tighter Security at Stores : Crime: A vigil is held a year after the death of a Palmdale man killed during a supermarket holdup. Two suspects are still sought.

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

For Caroline Holland, the way her brother died is both a relief and a constant source of anger.

He never saw it coming.

One year after 28-year-old Robert Ward of Palmdale was killed during a holdup at a Ralphs supermarket on Sherman Way in Van Nuys, Holland and a few dozen former friends of the Coca-Cola salesman returned to the scene for a candlelight vigil, calling for a renewed effort to capture his killers and passage of a bill in the state Senate that would tighten security at supermarkets and drugstores.

“He didn’t know what was going on,” Holland said of his death on Oct. 19, 1992.

“My brother was in the back of the store, got paged, walked up to make a phone call in the front of the store where the robbers were. They asked him to hang up the phone, but he didn’t hear them. Then they shot him in the back of the head.”

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While Holland is thankful that her brother did not suffer, she said she is anguished that his killers have not been punished.

One suspect, 19-year-old Jose Santillan of Pacoima, turned himself in last November and will be tried next month on a charge of murdering Ward and 20 counts of robbery. The other two suspects, 25-year-old Ramon Reyes and 21-year-old Louie Velarde, both of Pacoima, are at large.

A $50,000 reward for information in the case has been offered by the city, Ralphs and Coca-Cola Co.

“My family is not going to give up until these guys are caught and security is tightened at Ralphs,” Holland said.

Roger Bresnahan, assistant district manager for Ralphs, could not comment on whether security had been tightened after Ward’s death. A Ralphs’ employee, who asked not to be identified, said nothing has changed at that store.

But it is change that many at the vigil want. Between tearful hugs and a moment of silence for Ward, a number of people expressed support for Assembly Bill 1605, which was inspired by Ward’s death. The bill has passed the Assembly and is before the Senate.

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“A lot of employees feel like we need more protection,” said Geraldine Lee Casarez, Ward’s cousin. She was robbed at gunpoint in October, 1991, while working as a checker at a Sav-On store in Arleta. “We’re not only talking about employees. We’re talking about families who come in to shop.”

The proposed state law, sponsored by Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood) and backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 770, would apply to grocery and drugstores covering more than 20,000 square feet with at least 20 employees.

Under the law, which will be debated in the Senate in January, stores that have been robbed at least once would be required to install security cameras, Friedman said.

All stores would be required to provide silent alarms and telephones with outside lines, maintain well-lighted parking lots, remove concealing stacked goods from store windows and train employees to deal with robberies and identify suspects.

“There is a supermarket robbery every three days in this city,” said Friedman, who attended the vigil. “If someone puts a gun to your head, most people don’t know what to do.”

Last year, there were 130 supermarket robberies in the city of Los Angeles. Police say the same three men suspected of killing Ward are believed to have struck supermarkets in Sunland, Studio City and Sherman Oaks the same day.

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“If the proper security measures had been put in place, they never would have made it to the Van Nuys store,” Holland said. “Three other Ralphs’ stores were robbed. Why weren’t they calling each other?”

Detective James Rahm of the Van Nuys Division, who is investigating the Ward slaying, agreed that tighter security might have put the suspects in jail already.

“If there had been a video camera there, we would have been able to move a lot faster,” he said.

But perhaps the proposed law means the most to Kandace Worley, 33, Ward’s fiancee from Lancaster. It was to her that he was speaking on the phone when he was shot. “I listened to him be killed,” she said. “Maybe something positive can come out of something so negative.”

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