Guard Foils Bank Holdup; Suspects Flee

A quick-thinking Brink’s guard used his armored truck to ram a motorcycle on which two robbers were trying to flee with $400,000 they had just taken at gunpoint from his partner, LAPD Officer Ed Orton said.

The bag of money was pinned under the cycle and recovered, but both robbers escaped, one by taking the car of a bank customer at gunpoint.

Police detectives in Los Angeles refused to confirm the amount of money in the bag.

The incident began at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday when one robber confronted a guard who was delivering a bag of cash to the Bank of America branch at 6600 Laurel Canyon Road, authorities said. The guard was ordered to lie on the floor of the bank’s foyer, and one robber grabbed the cash and fled.

The guard radioed his partner, the driver of the armored truck parked near the bank. The driver spotted the robber wearing blue overalls and a helmet hopping on a motorcycle parked in front of the bank.

A second suspect in his mid-30s waiting nearby then fired two shots at the armored truck before both men jumped on the motorcycle, police said.

But the driver, who was also not identified, ran his truck into the motorcycle, knocking both men off and pinning the bag of money under their vehicle, police said.

One suspect ran across the street into a waiting red minivan and fled. The second suspect ran to the bank’s parking lot and took a bank customer’s car at gunpoint and escaped.