Well-Dressed Man Robs Armored Car In The Bronx, Exchanges Gunfire With Guard
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police were searching late Tuesday for a well-dressed bandit who exchanged gunfire with a guard after robbing an armored car in the Bronx.
As CBS2's Steve Langford reported, police said grabbed two bags of cash in the robbery.
The armored truck was picking up money from a check-cashing outlet on Westchester Avenue around 9:30 a.m., and loading the money into the back of the truck, police said.
The suspect put a gun to the neck of the armored truck guard, and walked out with the bags containing $78,000 in cash, police said.
Surveillance video showed the suspect racing across the street and shooting at the armored truck guard. The guard fired back, with bullets flying in all directions.
"He shot over that way. He shot that way," a witness said.
The witness, speaking through an interpreter, said the armed robber had an accomplice in the car.
"She said that she saw the guy in the car tell the other guy to keep shooting," the interpreter said of the witness.
A witness named Max said he counted at least eight shots.
"I wasn't getting nowhere near that," Max told 1010 WINS' Al Jones. "As soon as I heard the first shot I started ducking."
Civilians scrambled for cover. A laundromat right across the street became a refuge for those fleeing bullets.
"One lady cried too, and her baby was scared -- me, scared too," said laundromat worker Jenny Wong.
Witness Lillian DeSann said her husband, Enrique, just missed getting shot when he was standing by his car at the car wash down the street.
"A little bit higher and he probably wouldn't be here," DeSann said.
The bullet hole in Enrique's car was grim evidence of the wild shootout between the armed robber and the armored truck guard.
"When he heard the first shot, the he looked and he turned," Lillian DeSann said. "And he saw that they were shooting from the Brinks car."
The suspect fled south on Colgate Avenue after the shootout. No one was hurt, but a citywide hospital canvass for the suspect is under way late Tuesday.
"I'm surprised nobody got injured, because there was a lot of people out here," witness Max said.
The suspect fled in a red Honda, Jones reported.
The truck is owned by Rapid Armored Corporation.
The investigation was ongoing late Tuesday.
