2 Security Guards Shot to Death in Separate Incidents

Two security guards, one of whom was unarmed, were fatally shot within 24 hours in separate attacks that security firm owners say underline the dangerous nature of their business.

In the most recent killing, at a Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus restaurant in Burbank early Friday, a man walked up to security guard Walter H. Thomas III, who was patrolling the parking lot, and fired several times, hitting Thomas at least twice, witnesses and Burbank police said.

A day earlier, Eddy Sanchez, 32, was shot during a struggle with bank robbers at Hanmi Bank near 1st Street and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, police said.

No suspects have been identified.

“Two or three incidents like this is highly unusual, especially in such a short period of time,” said Thomas Wathen, chairman of Van Nuys-based Pinkerton Security and Investigations. “But the more security guards there are out there, the more likely it is to happen. It’s very dangerous out there.”

In Burbank, the shooting of the unarmed guard was preceded by at least two fights and three arrests during a night in which patrons crowded into the restaurant’s bar for $2 shots of tequila and beer, police and employees said.

After one of the brawls, police arrested three men who were still in custody when the security guard was gunned down, Burbank Police Sgt. Scott Wilson said. But employees said Friday that friends of the men had threatened them after the arrests.

“They said, ‘We’re gonna get you,’ ” said one of the employees, all of whom asked not to be identified.

The restaurant’s manager and officials of the restaurant chain declined to comment about the shooting Friday.

In the other slaying, Sanchez apparently did not immediately realize that the bank was being robbed when three men entered the building about 11 a.m., said Lt. Ken Lady of the Los Angeles Police Department robbery-homicide division. When he did, police said, Sanchez approached two of the men and was struggling with them when a gun went off.

Sanchez was armed, but did not draw his weapon, police said. After the shooting and robbery, the three men ran out of the bank and escaped, police said.

The bank employs two guards. The other guard, who is Sanchez’s cousin, had gone on a break moments before the robbery, Lady said. Sanchez’s security firm, API Security, did not return phone calls seeking comment Friday.

Security guards have the sixth-riskiest job in the country, with a homicide rate of 3.6 per 100,000, according to a National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety study done earlier this year.

“The job is extremely dangerous, probably more dangerous than being a police officer because of lack of backups, lack of equipment and lack of training,” said Walter Cranston, owner and operator of Cranston Security Services in North Hollywood. “Armed or unarmed, it’s not going to make a difference,” Cranston said. “The state training is minimal. It’s next to nothing. (The guards) are not mentally prepared to deal with the situation.”

The Black Angus, a popular watering hole on 1st Street in downtown Burbank, had hired an outside security firm to police the parking lot and agreed to discontinue its heavily attended $1 drink nights when Burbank police and Alcohol Beverage Control officials complained about frequent fights at the club, said ABC district administrator Jim Smith.