Brink’s Guard Is Mourned

Family and friends sometimes suggested that Ricardo Gomez, the armored-car guard shot to death in an Anaheim robbery on Monday, find a less dangerous line of work.

But Gomez, 29, downplayed the danger, even though he had talked recently of looking for a different job. His time would come when it came, he told his older brother, Gabriel Gomez.

Gomez liked his job, the camaraderie, the exchange of smiles with regular customers. Most of all, he liked knowing that he was providing well for his wife and their 3-year-old son, Brandon.

There was a fear of being robbed, said Gomez’s brother-in-law, Dave Gordon. “Everyone knew it. But he was happy. He had big plans.”

Gomez made deliveries for Brink’s six days a week, working up to 12 hours a day, family members said. There was the mortgage to pay on the house in Orange, where family members gathered to grieve on Tuesday.

There was the camper Gomez planned to buy so he and Brandon could go on outings in the desert. There was the remodeling of the living room, which Gomez had recently finished. And of course, there was Christmas.

The holiday decorations were up, but the mood on Tuesday was somber as Gomez’s extended family struggled with their grief.

Anaheim police have assigned more than a dozen detectives to the case, but so far few clues have turned up, said Sgt. Rick Martinez.

Gomez was shot to death in the hallway of an Anaheim catering-truck supply firm, where he was making a cash pickup. The gunman fled on foot with thousands of dollars. Witnesses described the man as in his 40s, clean-shaven, white, 6 feet tall, 180 to 200 pounds.

“A lot of people think they saw the suspect, but we don’t have enough yet, at this point, to put out a better description,” Martinez said. “We don’t want to send people out on a wild goose chase.”

Brink’s officials have set up a trust fund for Gomez’s wife, Veronica, and the couple’s son.

The loss has devastated not just the Gomez family but their close-knit neighborhood. On Tuesday, many called at the Gomez home to pay their respects.

Gomez, the sixth of eight children, was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Santa Ana and graduated from Santa Ana High School. He and Veronica were married six years ago.

Gabriel Gomez, Ricardo’s older brother, said that just this past Sunday, he was thinking what a great father Ricardo was. A smile flickered across his face at the memory.

Gordon, the brother-in-law who lived across the street and once worked for an armored-car company himself, recalled his final conversation with Ricardo after a family dinner last week.

“‘As he walked out the door, I said, ‘Watch it out there. It’s Christmas. It’s dangerous,’ ” Gordon said, adding that with heavy holiday sales, armored cars may be an even more inviting target. “That was the last time I saw him.”

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Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.