Armored Truck Guard Is Slain

An armored truck guard was fatally shot in a robbery Monday in front of employees at an Anaheim catering truck company, police said.

The Brinks guard was in a hallway when he was confronted by a gunman who fired once, striking him in the head, police said. The guard, 29, died at the scene.

The gunman fled on foot and was at large Monday night. Sgt. Mike Hidalgo, a spokesman for the Anaheim Police Department, said investigators had not determined how much money the gunman took. “We’re still trying to piece it together,” he said.

Witnesses said the incident at Orange County Food Services happened at 1:20 p.m. just outside the “money room,” where catering truck drivers deposit and pick up funds daily. Hidalgo said the guard, whose name was not released, was making a pickup at the company, which provides food, such as sandwiches and baked goods, for catering trucks.

“We don’t know if he was followed, if the robbers did their homework and knew there was a drop-off or if [the shooter] was inside waiting for him,” Hidalgo said. “I don’t think this was a chance robbery. Whoever did this had either watched the truck, planned for it, or it’s possible maybe they had knowledge from the inside.”

The guard’s partner, the armored truck driver, had stayed in the vehicle and was not hurt, Hidalgo said.

Witnesses who saw the fleeing gunman described him as in his 40s, 180 to 200 pounds, about 6 feet tall, white, clean-shaven, wearing a tan Windbreaker-type jacket, khaki pants and a white cap. They said they did not know how the man got into the building, which has only one entrance that is staffed by a receptionist.

Cora Williams, an accountant for the company, said, “I heard the gunshot. Everybody was panicking, calling 911, running back and forth. I froze. It was so scary.”

She and other employees said they knew the guard, who arrived about the same time every day at the company in the 3000 block of East Miraloma Avenue.

“I just know him because he greeted everybody,” she said. “He was friendly to everybody, and we liked him very much.”

Susan Karagines-Duval, a manager at the company, said of the guard, “He had a smile from here to here. My thoughts and prayers are with the family.”

John Miner, an independent contractor who supervises 18 catering trucks, arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting. He said the incident left employees distressed and shaken. “They’re all hanging their heads,” he said. “Everybody’s pretty sad about it.”

Though FBI statistics show a decline in armored truck robberies in Southern California over the past decade--from 22 in 1993 to eight in 1999--Monday’s attack was one of six in the past 18 months.

In August 2000, a shopper was killed in a Van Nuys Costco parking lot when robbers opened fire on an armored truck guard. Last December, a security guard was wounded during an attempted robbery of an armored truck in South Los Angeles.

That same month, an armored truck driver was shot to death in a holdup in West Hollywood. This year, robbers fatally shot a Brinks guard as he delivered money to a cash machine at an Albertsons supermarket in the San Fernando Valley.