Robbers Take Mental Patients’ $5,000 in Holiday Shopping Money

An employee returning to the Sylmar Health and Rehabilitation Center with $5,000 in Christmas shopping funds for the facility’s mentally ill patients was robbed by two men Thursday, authorities said.

The robbery left the patients with no money to buy gifts. “As it stands, there’s no Christmas for these people,” said Todd Polk, the facility’s clinical director.

“The reactions are very different,” Polk said. “Some are in tears. Some have become very violent.”

The robbery occurred just after 11 a.m. in the center’s parking lot in the 12200 block of Foothill Boulevard, said Los Angeles Police Officer Frank Cerny.

He said two men hit Andy Weed, 22, on the head and took the cash.

Weed was treated and released from Sylmar Medical Center, authorities said.

The rehabilitation center is a privately owned facility that operates with some government financial assistance, Polk said. About 205 patients, 18 to 64 years old, with severe and chronic mental illnesses are supervised by about the same number of staffers.

Weed had gone to the bank to cash Social Security checks for about 80 patients who were going to use the money today to go Christmas shopping at a local store where the patients get discounts.

Christmas shopping is one of the few occasions when the patients, most of whom require constant supervision, are allowed to leave the locked facilities, Polk said.

One of the assailants was described as a Latino in his 20s, 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing about 185 pounds, with a mustache, Cerny said. He wore a burgundy and white shirt and baggy blue jeans. No description was available for the second man. The robbers fled in a 1990 green pickup truck.