Police Seek Suspect in Shooting of Security Guard : Investigation: ‘Extremely dangerous’ man served 11 years for bank robberies and is a former L.A. County sheriff’s deputy.

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, who served 11 years in prison for a series of bank robberies, was sought by police Wednesday in connection with the shooting of a security guard in a supermarket parking lot.

The suspect, Stephen Moreland Redd, 49, is described as “an extremely dangerous man with an exceptionally violent background and no regard for positions of authority,” said police Lt. Timm Browne.

Police said that a uniformed security guard was sent to a Vons parking lot in the 2600 block of North Tustin Street at 10:40 p.m. Tuesday to investigate reports of a suspicious-looking person in a long brown wig.

The guard approached the man, who was “nervous and uncooperative,” Browne said. At that point, a second guard arrived and the man fired several shots, hitting the second guard in the shoulder.

The man fled to a nearby apartment complex where his van was parked. The license plate led police to a Fullerton address, which police linked to Redd.

Redd was a deputy from 1967 to 1973, when he resigned for personal reasons, according to personnel records.

In 1982, Redd shot a La Habra police officer in the leg after robbing a Security Pacific Bank branch and then led police on a car chase through three counties before being captured.

He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for a series of bank robberies committed that fall, said Art Lucero, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

In 1986, he tried to climb over a fence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo and was shot in the arm by prison guards, Lucero said. A year and four months was added to his sentence.

Redd was released from prison in April, 1993, and had been a self-employed construction worker. His parole officer last saw him on May 22 at home. Redd has been under psychiatric counseling as a condition of his parole, Lucero said.

“He was under pretty close supervision,” Lucero said. “We didn’t have any parole violations on him.”

Tuesday’s shooting was the third serious shooting incident involving unarmed private security guards in Orange County in just over three months.

On Feb. 19, Dagoberto Carrero was shot and killed in a barrage of gunfire as he stood at his post inside the lobby of the Century City Centre Theatre in Orange. Carrero, a 23-year-old former Marine and a Persian Gulf War veteran, worked for Patrol One, the same company as the guard injured in the most recent shooting.

Three Santa Ana men subsequently were charged with first-degree murder in connection with the Carrero shooting, which police said stemmed from an earlier argument.

On Feb. 20, 19-year-old Rupert Morales was shot and killed as he tried to direct a car into a parking space at a Garden Grove bar in the 8000 block of Garden Grove Boulevard. No arrests have been made, and an investigation is continuing.

Bill Bancroft, owner of Patrol One, said shootings are a “major concern” that were discussed extensively Wednesday at his Orange-based firm, which deploys more than 80 unarmed guards at gated communities, high-rise office buildings, shopping centers and apartment complexes.

Arming his guards is an issue he has grappled with for some time, Bancroft said.

While clients may not like the idea of guards carrying guns, job applicants are troubled about patrolling without them, Bancroft said.

“They say it very explicitly,” he said. “We’ve lost employees today because we’re unarmed. . . . Word gets around.”

Browne said police find Redd’s background particularly troubling because he is a “treacherous type of criminal who has the know-how to be extremely dangerous.”

Redd is white, 6 feet tall, weighs 200 pounds and has a shaved head. He is clean-shaven and has blue eyes. At the time of the shooting, the man police believe was Redd was wearing the long wig, a cap and a blue, hooded sweat shirt with a zippered front.

Anyone with information about Redd’s whereabouts is asked to call the Orange Police Department at (714) 744-7444.