By Emily Bittner, The Arizona Republic
An armored car guard was ambushed and killed Monday during an armed robbery in Ahwatukee in which the shooter escaped on a bicycle.
Robert Keith Palomares, 24, was carrying the weekend deposits out of the AMC Ahwatukee 24 theater at Ray Road and 50th Street. The shooter lay in wait near the ticket booth.
Palomares, a guard for Dunbar Armored, didn’t have a chance to draw his gun, said Detective Tony Morales, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department. He was wearing body armor, but was shot several times and later died.
The other guard stayed in the vehicle, standard procedure when one guard is making a collection, Morales said.
Police declined to disclose how much money was taken.
Witnesses said the suspect rode a black and red mountain bicycle southeast away from the theater and carried the black and tan moneybag.
He is described as a 25- to 30-year-old Hispanic man, about 5-foot-8 inches tall. He was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt or jacket and dark jeans, Morales said.
Authorities set up a perimeter around the theater , but investigators have no good leads, he said.
Police found a bicycle abandoned nearby, but it didn’t fit witnesses’ description of the suspect’s bike. Video surveillance from nearby businesses was not helpful in identifying the suspect, Morales said.
A spokesman for Dunbar, the largest private armored car service in the country, said fatal robberies are rare, but that its employees put their lives on the line daily.
“Somebody’s got to make the pickups,” said Sean Gibbons, director of corporate communications for the company. “Somebody needs to transport the bulk cash. The lives that are saved among people in the retail sector and in the public, that would be an incalculable number.”
The company won’t disclose its security precautions, but Gibbons said “an ambush is not something new.”
He said the company is mourning Palomares’ loss and employees’ thoughts are with his family and friends.
Gary Larson, 36, has worked at the Ahwatukee AMC as a greeter for three years. He often works in the morning, when the same security guards come in.
“All of them are pretty cool, really nice guys,” he said.
Managers are generally at the theater early in the morning and Larson believes up to three people could have been inside during the shooting.
Larson said AMC can do more to protect its employees.
“If anyone on a bike can come up and shoot you, this place isn’t as safe as I think it could be,” he said.
Police recommend against companies following the same routine to pick up money, but it is unclear whether Palomares and the other driver went to the theater at the same time on the same day.
AMC corporate officials would not comment on their company’s security measures.
Silent Witness is offering a $1,000 for information that leads to the arrest or conviction of Palomares’ shooter.
Three years ago, the Ahwatukee AMC was the scene of a robbery, in which three employees were held hostage. The robber escaped with a sack of cash.
Four years ago, an armored truck was robbed at a Mesa AMC theaterArizona also has had a number of guards killed during armored car heists.
In 1977, Michael and Patrick Poland, brothers from Prescott, posed as DPS officers and pulled over an armored car on Interstate 17 taking more than $280,000. The Poland brothers then zipped the truck’s two guards into canvas bags, weighted them with rocks and dumped them in Lake Mead, killing them. The brothers were executed.
In 1994, Timothy Ring and two accomplices hijacked an armored van at Arrowhead Mall in Glendale, stealing more than $562,000 in cash and $271,000 in checks. Later that day, sheriff’s deputies found the van in Sun City, its doors locked and its engine running, and the driver shot dead.
Ring was sentenced to death by a judge in 1997. In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he was entitled to have a jury determine his sentence. The Ring decision changed how death sentences are meted out across the country. Ring will be resentenced in Maricopa County in May.