Brinks guard abducted and killed in Oakland
- Henry K. Lee and Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, September 29, 2006
(09-29) 09:41 PDT OAKLAND -- A Brinks security guard in an armored car was shot and killed this morning after being kidnapped in East Oakland along with a second guard, who was left unharmed, police said. The two security guards were kidnapped around 7 a.m. on the 3000 block of East Ninth Street while they were parked near a coffee shop, said Officer Roland Holmgren, a Police Department spokesman. The guards may have been taking a break at the shop, which is in a shopping center near the Fruitvale BART station and Interstate 880. A masked assailant got into the armored car through the back, held one of the guards at gunpoint and forced the other to drive half a mile to an industrial area at East 10th Street and 23rd Avenue, Holmgren said. There, the assailant shot to death the guard in the back and escaped with an unknown amount of money. The driver was unharmed but "very traumatized," Holmgren said. "It's very alarming, very scary to think that a suspect would have the audacity and gall to pull something as heinous as this in broad daylight," Holmgren said. At least one of the security guards was armed, police said, but it was not immediately clear which one. And while only one man hijacked the truck, police are unsure whether additional people helped him once the truck arrived at East 10th and 23rd. This is not the first time an armored car guard has been killed in the East Bay. In November 2002, two masked men shot and killed a Brinks guard in an armored car in West Berkeley. In 1997, a guard for Armored Transport Inc. was shot to death in San Ramon during a robbery in which $300,000 was stolen from the truck. The guard's partner, Thomas Wheelock, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
