Guard Badly Wounded in Store Heist

In a brazen robbery before scores of shoppers, a gunman stole a sack of money from an armored car guard inside a Riverside supermarket Thursday morning, shot the guard, fled through a back door and drove off down a busy thoroughfare.

The Brinks armored car guard was in grave condition, though stable, at Riverside Community Hospital late Thursday. Riverside police spent the day searching the city for the getaway car, a late-model red Ford Taurus.

Police declined to identify the guard, though he was known to be 28 and a San Bernardino resident. They said he was shot at least once in the upper body. Several witnesses and a Brinks spokesman said the guard suffered one gunshot to the head.

“He shot him point blank,” said Susan Cornejo, who was in a checkout line at the Food 4 Less in the 4200 block of Van Buren Boulevard when she saw the shooter run toward the guard.

Cornejo said the gunman fired a warning shot with a silver pistol, then yelled an expletive at the guard seconds before he shot him in the head. The shooter wore a shoulder-length wig and a baseball cap, police said.

“The guard didn’t have any time to react at all. He just fell to the floor,” Cornejo said.

She said everyone in the store dropped to the ground, unsure whether the gunman was going to keep shooting.

The guard, who was armed, was delivering money to the store and was walking toward the store manager’s office when the gunman charged him from behind, police said.

Neither police nor Brinks officials would say how much money was stolen.

There were about 50 shoppers inside the Food 4 Less at the time, said Police Sgt. Steve Johnson.

Cornejo said the store manager kept everyone calm and moved shoppers to an upstairs break room once it was safe. They had to pass the injured guard on their way out, she said. He was lying on his left side and blood was everywhere, she said.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said. “I just kept thanking God that my kids weren’t with me.”

Shortly after the 10:30 a.m. shooting, police closed the market to prevent witnesses and employees from leaving before they could be interviewed. The public and journalists were blocked from the entire supermarket parking lot, as worried friends and relatives of employees waited for their loved ones on the sidewalk.

Employees gradually began to exit and drive out of the parking lot. Most said they had not seen anything or were too distraught to talk.

One young woman, who worked at the Wells Fargo branch inside the supermarket, sobbed and made a gun motion to her head as she described the shooting to her friends.

Johnson said the shooting was not caught on store surveillance video, though it did catch him walking away afterward. His car was parked behind the supermarket.

“We’re still looking for the vehicle and for him,” Johnson said late Thursday. “This happened very quickly. From the time of the [guard’s] entry to the shooting was maybe one minute or two. People in the store were panicked and frightened. By the time we were notified and by the time our first officer arrived through midmorning traffic, I’m sure it was three or four minutes. It would be unreasonable to assume he couldn’t get away quickly.”

Witnesses could not provide any numbers from the robber’s license plate, Johnson said, only a vehicle description.

Johnson said there was “nothing to indicate this was an inside job” but added that it was obviously not a random act.

Officials at Brinks would not discuss any specifics of the case or elaborate on Brinks safety protocols.

“We worry about our guards every day,” said Brinks spokesman Ed Cunningham. “When something like this happens, it tears us up. It’s a tough job.”