Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Brinks Guard Shoots 2 Robbery Suspects

A 23-year-old Brinks armored car guard carrying a bag of money shot and wounded two men who tried to rob him inside the J. C. Penney store at the Antelope Valley Mall on Thursday afternoon, foiling the crime and paving the way for the pair’s capture, authorities said.

In the third armed robbery incident at the mall in the past seven weeks, the two suspects fled in a Chevrolet Suburban. One was captured down the street after collapsing in the doorway of a Target store. The other took another car from Target’s parking lot but crashed about a mile away.

No one else was injured in the early afternoon incident, which left blood spattered on the floor of the J. C. Penney store, or in the ensuing chase in which several witnesses followed the second suspect in their cars as he drove from the Target store until he crashed.

Sheriff’s deputies and Brinks officials commended the quick action taken by Brinks guard Ronald Vose. Vose, who said he had been with the company about a year and had never before been involved in a shooting or robbery, fired at least three shots at close range.

Sheriff’s Deputy Marty Shearer said the two suspects, one armed with a handgun, confronted Vose in a corridor as he was heading toward his armored car parked outside near the catalogue entrance of the J. C. Penney. The two men never got the money and dropped their gun after being shot.

Shearer said the suspect who collapsed at the Target store was a male adult who had no identification and refused to give his name. He was scheduled to undergo surgery for a stomach wound at Palmdale Hospital Medical Center and was expected to survive.

Deputies said the suspect who crashed a late-model Cadillac in a ditch along Sierra Highway and Avenue Q was a 17-year-old Inglewood youth whose identity was not released because of his age. He was being treated at the Palmdale hospital for wounds to the stomach and arm, Shearer said.

Shearer said the suspects fled the mall at 10th Street West and Avenue P in the red Suburban and drove about a block south to the Target parking lot. At that point, one robber ran toward the store and the other ran to the parked Cadillac and drove off. It is uncertain whether the unoccupied car was parked there earlier by the would-be robbers or left unattended, authorities said.

Buster Hicks, who works across the street, said he heard tires squealing and saw a mall security guard in a vehicle chase the two suspects into the Target parking lot. Hicks said he then saw one of the suspects drive off in the Cadillac. At that point, Hicks said he gave chase in his truck along with several other citizens.

Hicks said he followed the Cadillac through the city’s Auto Mall near the Antelope Valley Freeway and then eastbound on Avenue Q until the car went into a ditch where the road makes a sudden 90-degree turn. Hicks said the driver fled on foot into some nearby business lots where he was captured.

Shearer said neither the Cadillac nor the Suburban had been officially reported stolen. But deputies said the Suburban probably was stolen, since its driver’s wind window had been punched out, there were toys and a child’s car seat in the back, and it had a Fresno car dealer’s license holder.

Both of the suspects face charges of attempted armed robbery.

On June 18, four men armed with guns robbed the Classic Jewelers store in the mall of about $150,000 worth of jewelry and got away despite a 2 1/2-hour search by deputies who cordoned off the area. No one was injured in that incident and no shots were fired.

On that same day, four other men were ordered to stand trial for an almost identical $700,000 robbery at the same mall store that occurred June 2. In that incident, the robbers were captured after separate shootouts with mall security guards and a sheriff’s deputy.

The first robbery involved men from the Los Angeles area as apparently did Thursday’s episode. But Shearer said he was unable to explain why the mall has had a sudden rash of robbery incidents, mostly involving people from areas more than 60 miles from the Antelope Valley.