2 Remaining Gunmen Evade Capture After Costco Shooting

Police searched Monday for two remaining suspects in a botched armored truck robbery in which heavily armed gunmen shot it out with a truck guard outside a busy Van Nuys Costco store, killing a 29-year-old television production assistant and critically wounding a husband and wife.

The slain man, identified Monday as Owen Alexander Wolf of Studio City, was a Philadelphia native who moved to Southern California with dreams of becoming a screenwriter, director or producer.

Wolf, who was shot in the head as he was about to enter the store, had worked on the television show “Felicity” and an upcoming CBS crime drama, co-workers said.

Kien Chau, 57, and his wife, Bachtuyett Tran, 51, also were hit in the barrage of at least 30 bullets. They were in critical condition Monday at San Fernando Valley hospitals. A fourth shopper, Vicky Cheung, 20, was treated for a minor gunshot wound and released.

During the gun battle, police said, at least two suspects fired indiscriminately as shoppers dived for cover and ran screaming during several minutes of chaos.

A suspect arrested after Sunday afternoon’s attack identified himself as Ramon Gutierrez, 38, of Tijuana. Police said they were checking fingerprints to confirm the name. Gutierrez was shot in the left leg, presumably by the guard, police said, and was recovering at the jail ward of County/USC Medical Center.

Los Angeles Police Det. Charles Stubbs said Monday that investigators had not yet determined who fired the first shot. It also is not yet known whether the victims were shot by the robbers or the truck guard, who works for Pico Rivera-based Sectran Security Inc.

The chief executive of the Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco chain questioned whether the guard should have fired his gun in the crowded parking lot, while the guard’s employer defended the action.

The attack occurred during a routine pickup about 2:30 p.m. at the giant Sepulveda Boulevard discount warehouse store.

The gunmen carried an assault rifle, at first described by police as an AK 47, and another weapon described by a witness as a rifle. Police later were trying to determine the make of the assault rifle.

The guard fired three shots from his 9-millimeter pistol. He was not hurt and did not turn over the bag of money.

Wolf was walking into the store when he was shot, said a Costco employee who witnessed the shooting.

“We were walking in together. That could have been me,” said the employee, who asked not to be identified, citing store policy barring employees from talking to the news media.

Friends Say Victim Had Great Attitude

Wolf’s resume said he earned a bachelor’s degree in literature and drama from Bennington College in Vermont and lived in Berkeley before moving to Los Angeles.

For about two years, Wolf lived at the Ray-Gene apartments, which residents said is filled with actors and writers.

“He was out here trying to live what people live out here,” said actor Tim Talman, 35. “We’re all artists of one kind or another here.”

Friends said Wolf was working on a screenplay--a romantic comedy about a wedding. He was spending the summer working for a new fall CBS show called “CSI,” an acronym for Crime Scene Investigation. Co-workers said he was good-humored about the struggle to make it in show business.

In recent weeks, Wolf had flown to the East Coast to take care of his sick stepfather and his mother, said neighbor Elizabeth Van Horn.

As a production assistant, Wolf was frequently given ridiculous assignments, recalled Judy Torres, who worked with him on “Felicity.” But he always had a great attitude, she said, whether his job involved keeping transients away from the craft table during a shoot downtown, wearing a bright orange vest while diverting traffic, or trying in vain to keep people from entering a public park while a “Felicity” wedding scene was being shot.

“His job was as a production assistant, which is all the work nobody else wants,” said co-worker Gregg Pallini. “It’s a steppingstone, and he was smart enough to know that.”

Pallini said Wolf was often called upon to stop traffic before a shoot.

“He had to have a big stop sign and wear an orange construction vest with yellow fluorescent straps on it,” Pallini said. “It was pretty funny. He would make fun of himself.”

On Monday, police credited the armored truck guards with Gutierrez’s capture shortly after the gun battle. When the getaway driver picked up the two gunmen in a white van, the armored truck’s driver rammed it. The impact probably caused a flat tire, which disabled the van a few blocks away near the corner of Sylvan Street and Kester Avenue, police said.

Witnesses reported seeing a man flee the van. The wounded Gutierrez was found inside with an assault rifle, police said. A dragnet failed to turn up the other suspects.

By Monday morning, all traces of the crime had been wiped away from the Costco entrance and parking lot, and the store opened on schedule at 10 a.m., said warehouse manager Kevin Green. Gone were the shards of glass from car windows, and the bullet casings. Dried pools of blood were removed. It was not exactly business as usual, however. The store offered counseling to employees, and management said it had decided to step up security. For the first time, an armed guard will be a fixture at the store “for the foreseeable future,” said Shawn Parks, operations vice president for Costco stores in Los Angeles County.

Shoppers at the store said they were not intimidated by Sunday’s violence.

But a witness who had been taken to a hospital after experiencing a panic attack, said the violence had profoundly shaken her sense of safety.

“I’m afraid to leave the house,” said Carmen Dominguez, 47, at her Van Nuys home. “It’s going to be a while before I go back to the store. I have never seen anything like this.”

Jim Sinegal, president and chief executive of Costco, questioned whether the truck guard should have exchanged shots with armed robbers in a crowded parking lot.

“I don’t want to pass judgment in the absence of facts,” Sinegal said. “But obviously we have to investigate why this happened in a crowded and congested area.”

State regulators who license armed guards said requirements specifically call for guards to prevent criminal incidents and, when necessary, observe and report illegal activity to law enforcement officials.

“Their role includes protecting people and property,” said Jay Van Rein, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. “But they are not peace officers and should not take on that role.”

The state’s training standards indicate that armored car guards may fire only if “threatened with death or serious injury, all other means to resolve the conflict have been exhausted and no other course of action is available.”

Actions of Guards Called Justified

Fred Donahue, director of security for Sectran Security Inc., said Monday that he believed the actions of the guards were justified. Neither the company nor police released the identitiies of the guards.

“Each and every situation is different, and there is not specific training to address a specific incident, because you have to take it as it comes,” Donahue said. “If your life is in immediate danger, under the law you have the right to defend yourself.”

Barry Bradley, a lawyer for an organization dedicated to increasing professional standards in the security industry, also defended the guards.

“Twenty/twenty hindsight probably says he should have turned over the money,” said Bradley, who advises the California Assn. of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards and Associates. “But in reality, in a dynamic situation, these guys probably acted properly and in accordance with their training and industry standard. The truth is that even if they had turned over money the shooting still could have occurred.”

Armored car robberies in Southern California have declined over the last decade, falling from 22 in 1993 to eight last year, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley. So far this year, there have been five, all in Los Angeles County, she said.

Parks, the Costco operations vice president, said most of the money the guard picked up was in the form of checks and electronic payment slips rather than cash. She declined to disclose the amount.

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Times staff writers Solomon Moore, Andrew Blankstein, Lee Condon, Edgar Sandoval, Kristina Sauerwein and Irene Garcia contributed to this story.