Courier, Guard Are Shot in Armored Car Holdup

A supermarket parking lot filled with hundreds of people erupted in gunfire Tuesday afternoon in South-Central Los Angeles when four men robbed an armored car courier, shooting him in the back and a store security guard in the head.

The courier, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, survived. The security guard, shot point-blank as he lay on the floor, suffered a graze wound. The robbers escaped with a satchel, which may have contained only food stamps.

Less than a week ago, another attack on an armored car in Los Angeles County left its driver dead and its cargo missing.

The robbers Tuesday surprised a Brinks courier at 2:50 p.m. as he walked out of the Superior warehouse store at 88th Street and Western Avenue with two large sacks, police Sgt. John Pasquarillo said.

As the courier dropped the bags and ran, a bullet struck him in the back, Pasquarillo said. His vest saved him from injury.

Moments later, a security guard began wrestling with another robber just inside the store.

“The suspect took his semiautomatic handgun and fired what he must have thought was a coup de grace,” Pasquarillo said. The guard “was awfully lucky; the bullet grazed his skull.”

Meanwhile, the driver of the armored car cracked open his door and exchanged gunfire with the robbers, as hundreds of customers in the parking lot and store ran for cover.

The robbers fled on foot, taking one of the sacks, authorities said.

“These guys were extremely violent,” he said. “Multiple shots were fired. It all went down within one minute.”

Jeanette Youngblood said she was in the store when she heard gunshots.

“I was scared. A lot of people were running and ducking. I stayed in the back of the store. It was shocking.”

The security guard was listed in stable condition at a hospital. The Brinks driver was not injured.

Five days ago, Calvin Gipson, a driver of a Dunbar Armored car, was found shot to death in his vehicle. Gipson’s partner had been making a pickup at a post office on San Vicente Boulevard in West Hollywood and returned to find Gipson and the armored vehicle gone. Police found the body in the vehicle on a nearby residential street.

Investigators declined to say whether the car had been robbed, but Dunbar issued a statement from its corporate headquarters in Hunt Valley, Md., saying the vehicle had been emptied of its cargo.

The 27-year-old Gipson had been on the job only three weeks.