Employee among four arrested in Wal-Mart robbery

Published 7:28 pm Wednesday, June 3, 2009

LAKEWOOD, Pierce County — Four people, including a store employee, have been arrested in the fatal shooting of an armored car guard during a bank branch robbery at a Wal-Mart store, a Lakewood police spokeswoman said today.

A 42-year-old woman, identified as a Wal-Mart employee who was in the store during the Tuesday afternoon robbery, was arrested Tuesday night, as was a 41-year-old man, Lt. Heidi Hoffman told a news conference.

A single bullet to the head killed Kurt Husted, a Loomis armored car guard, and wounded a male customer in the store in this south Tacoma suburb. The guard had been leaving an Anchor Bank branch located inside the store.

Today, police arrested a 37-year-old man believed to be the gunman and a 20-year-old man. Hoffman said they are believed to be the men seen on surveillance video leaving the store. She said the third man was believed to be the driver of the getaway car.

All were arrested for investigation of homicide, robbery and assault.

Surveillance video of the robbery itself makes it clear the shooter made no attempt to take the money without violence, the spokeswoman said.

“They just walked up and executed him,” she said. “It was very violent, very cold-blooded.”

About two-thirds of the money has been recovered, Hoffman said, declining to specify how much was stolen.

“It certainly wasn’t worth taking a man’s life for the amount of money they got,” she said.

The male customer wounded in the shoulder, Wilbert Pina, said he was in the store with his 15-month-old son when he heard the shot and lurched forward. The child was not injured.

“In four seconds, someone died and I got shot,” Pina told KIRO-TV. “I could have died.

“It was just straight cold,” he said of the killing. “They didn’t give the guy a chance. They shot him, the bullet went through him, smacked me in the shoulder.”

Two of the people arrested are related. Hoffman described the four as conspiring to rob the guard.

“We believe that the Wal-Mart employee gave information to the other people involved as to the comings and goings of that Loomis armored truck,” she said. “I can’t say who was the mastermind, we haven’t gotten that far yet, but there were at least these four involved in planning it together.”

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on the police statement that a store employee was involved.

“Obviously, it’s a senseless act of violence. Our condolences go out to the guard’s family. We’re cooperating with the police in the investigation,” spokesman Greg Rossiter said in a telephone interview from Bentonville, Ark. “It’s our policy in these instances to refer comment on an investigation to the police involved because their investigation is still active.”

Rossiter added all employees’ backgrounds are checked prior to hiring.

Prosecutors have yet to formally charge any of the people arrested, the Pierce County prosecutor’s office told The Seattle Times today.

More arrests could be forthcoming in the multi-agency investigation, which includes the FBI, Hoffman said.

“It’s a puzzle that we’re putting together,” she said, agreeing with a reporter’s description of the arrests being similar to a game of dominos. “There may be more dominos yet to come.”

The 39-year-old Husted was a 16-year veteran of Houston-based Loomis, company spokesman Pat Flaherty said.

The guard had been wearing a bulletproof vest, Flaherty said. He said Husted was not married.

“We mourn deeply the loss of Kurt Husted,” his family said in a statement released to KING5-TV. “He was a wonderful, caring person whom we loved deeply and will miss forever.”

“Kurt was quite noticeably a soft-spoken young man,” a friend, Ryan Donahue, told KING5. “He was in helicopter pilot school intending to someday change professions. He loved motorcycles and was an amateur motorcycle racer.”

Store customer Patti O’Callahan, of nearby University Place, told The News Tribune of Tacoma she heard the gunshot about two minutes after she walked in the store. “Everybody was screaming and running all over the store. They were trying to find crevices to hide in.”

She said store employees quickly opened the building’s emergency back exits and evacuated the customers.