Guard Dodges a Bullet : Robbery: He escapes with a slight cut in attack outside bank. For his partner, holdup is replay of an event a year ago.

The robber held his semiautomatic handgun inches away from the face of armored car guard Mynor Godinez and fired.

Then the robber and his partner fled the scene outside a Bank of America branch Thursday morning.

Godinez, who had to be the luckiest man in town that day, got up from the sidewalk with only a slight cut on his lip. He had jerked his head back just as the gun fired, and the bullet barely grazed him.

Meanwhile, Godinez’s partner--the armored car’s driver--sat in the vehicle frantically radioing for police assistance, and probably experiencing deja vu. One year and a day ago, the same driver had foiled two robbers at the very same bank on Laurel Canyon Boulevard by ramming his car into the thieves’ getaway motorcycle, saving the money.

The robbery Thursday began about 9:10 a.m., minutes after the bank opened, Los Angeles Police Lt. Ken Lady said. Godinez was wheeling sacks of money on a dolly from the truck to the bank when a man at the automated teller machine turned to him and drew a gun, Lady said.

Godinez drew his weapon and dashed behind the armored car for cover, firing twice at the advancing robber, Lady said. Neither shot hit, and Godinez fired two more shots, which also missed.

The second robber yelled for Godinez to drop his gun, and Godinez fired at him, missing yet again, Lady said.

Godinez may have hit the second robber with his next shot, the last in his handgun. But injured or not, the robber walked up to Godinez and grabbed the empty gun, Lady said. Then the robber put his own gun up to Godinez’s face and fired.

Lady said the robbers got into their getaway car--a white Plymouth Acclaim driven by a third person--and sped off, heading east on Archwood Street. They left behind the bag of cash they had snatched from the dolly, a wig and the handgun that had been used to shoot at Godinez, Lady said. The robbers did take an unknown amount of money from the bag, “but not much,” Lady said.

“It was all pretty quick,” said a man who was standing in a nearby parking lot when the shooting began and ran to the scene. The man, who works as a security guard, asked that his name not be published.

“I’m always worried about this happening to me,” he said, “but I guess it’s part of the job.”

It certainly has been for the driver of the armored car, whose name was not released by police. They confirmed that 366 days ago--at virtually the same time at the same bank--the driver rammed his car into the rear of a motorcycle that carried two robbers who had held up his partner moments earlier. The robbers were knocked off the bike, but hopped into other vehicles and escaped. The money was trapped beneath the disabled motorcycle, though.

Elvira Guiterrez, who owns a hair salon in the Valley Plaza shopping center across the street from the bank, said it seems as if there have been numerous robberies in the bank’s vicinity, although police say the bank itself has a relatively robbery-free history.

“It happens all the time during the day,” said the 47-year-old woman, whose cousin had been planning to go to the bank when they heard gunshots. “It’s very frightening for people in this area.”