Brink’s Guard Killed in Heist at O.C. Store

As horrified witnesses looked on, two armed men ambushed a Brink’s armored vehicle in front of a Lucky supermarket Monday morning, fatally wounding a 39-year-old guard and escaping with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.

One of the suspects jumped from behind a store pillar at 11:40 a.m. and fired a semiautomatic handgun at Brink’s guard Mark A. Smith, who was carrying a satchel of money from the store to the armored van, authorities said.

The two suspects then fled from the parking lot in a car they later abandoned, said Lt. Ron Wilkerson of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. They were last seen in a bluish-gray Ford Taurus station wagon heading south on Knott Avenue, he said.

Police said the suspects were still at large Monday night.

Smith was taken by ambulance to Columbia West Anaheim Medical Center, where he died at 4:26 p.m. after two hours of emergency surgery for a neck wound, authorities said.

Smith’s partner, whom authorities did not identify, was not injured. He was the driver of the armored truck, authorities said, and Smith was the passenger.

“It appears the suspects were hiding, lying in wait, and ambushed the guards,” Wilkerson said. On the other hand, he said, “this could be a crime of opportunity. We can’t be sure right now.”

Distraught Lucky employees who witnessed the shooting were sent home early by the store’s managers.

Among other witnesses were some customers in a doughnut shop next door.

“We heard the shots--bang, bang! It sounded like a revolver,” said Jens Aitken, 80, who said he saw the two armed men run past the shop window. “Then a woman from the Lucky store started screaming for someone to call 911. . . . I never saw anything like it.”

Jeff Weyant, a 35-year-old computer programmer, rushed to Smith’s side after the shooting, along with several other bystanders.

“You see stuff like this on TV, and then you actually see it. To know someone did this for monetary gain, it’s just terrible,” he said.

Dorie M. Smith described her late husband as a loyal and devoted family man who took pride in his work. The couple’s 16th wedding anniversary was only two weeks away.

“It’s just unimaginable that this happened,” she said in a brief interview. “I feel terrible. I wish had something profound to say. But I’m feeling so damned empty and lost. I just can’t comprehend what happened.”

No one else was injured in the incident, Wilkerson said. Another bullet fired by the suspect hit an unoccupied car in front of the store, in the 7000 block of Katella Avenue. Those appeared to have been the only shots fired, he said.

As shoppers pulled up to the supermarket later Monday and learned what had happened, they expressed their revulsion.

“This is a nice community. This is the kind of thing that doesn’t happen here,” said Tim Grzeskowiak, 42, who lives a mile away in Buena Park. “You hear about this in other neighborhoods but not here. It’s just incredible.”

Officials at Brink’s Inc.’s Darien, Conn., headquarters would not comment on the incident.

But Smith’s co-workers at the security company grieved at the loss of their colleague, whom they described as easygoing, professional and humorous.

“I’m kind of numb right now,” said one guard, who said he had worked with Smith for about a year and asked not to be identified. “I can’t believe he’s dead. I just talked to him today. He was a really good guy. You do all you can to be prepared and be cautious, but if someone gets the drop on you, there’s nothing you can do.”

Residents of the Smiths’ modest Tustin neighborhood were also shaken. Robert Lucero, 32, who lives on the same street, said the couple were quiet and kind.

Lucero, a U.S. Postal Service employee, said he saw Smith frequently as they both departed for work at 6 a.m.

“Every morning, we’d leave about the same time and he’d say, ‘Hello,’ ” Lucero said. “They were very nice people to live next to. I’m just really shocked this happened to Mark.”

Sheriff’s Lt. Wilkerson described Monday’s crime as “very unusual for this area of Orange County.”

Since 1994, four other security guards have been killed on duty in Orange County. The most highly publicized case was the killing of Robert T. Walsh, 60, an automated-teller serviceman whose body was found in his charred car on Easter 1995.

Walsh had disappeared from his bank route two days earlier. His body was found April 16 in an alley behind an Orange strip mall. Walsh, who worked with Wells Fargo Armored Service Corps., died of a gunshot wound to the head, investigators said, and his body was torched later.

Being a security guard has long been a high-risk occupation. Data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the U.S. Department of Labor show that, between 1980 and 1993, there were 3.6 homicides for every 100,000 security guards employed, making the occupation one of the nation’s five most perilous.

Mark Smith was no stranger to dangerous occupations, his widow said. In 1979, he moved to California from his hometown of Durante, Okla., to join the U.S. Marines. He later fought in Operation Desert Storm and returned to Orange County, where he took a job five years ago with Brink’s in Orange.