Three sought in Brinks heist attempt

Cheryl Miller

Tuesday, June 29, 1999 | 11:39 a.m.

Metro Police were compiling sketches this morning of three men who attempted to rob an armored truck at a Strip resort on Monday.

The three exchanged gunfire with two armored truck guards in a battle for the contents of the truck that had just pulled up to the Desert Inn hotel-casino. The two guards sustained superficial wounds as bullets flew across Las Vegas Boulevard and over the dazed heads of tourists.

Police say the gunmen hid in bushes next to the casino waiting for the arrival of a Brinks armored truck. The truck rolled into the parking lot about 9:40 a.m., and as one guard emerged from the back of the truck, the gunmen confronted him, police said. The guard wheeled around and was trying to re-enter the truck when the gunmen began firing with a semi-automatic pistols and rifles.

The guards, who returned fire, were shot -- one in the arm and one in the leg. The guards drove themselves to Valley Hospital and the gunmen fled the parking lot in a car police described as a champagne-colored 1995 Isuzu Rodeo. The gunmen did not get any money, police said.

Police say the gunmen and guards exchanged between 15 and 20 rounds.

The two guards were treated and released. The guards were not identified and a spokesman for Brinks declined comment on the incident.

The gunmen were wearing dark clothes and ski masks at the time of the attack. Police would not say this morning how they obtained descriptions of the men's facial features for sketches. The men are described as 5-feet-10 to 6-feet tall, weighing 180 to 200 pounds.

A short time after the botched robbery, police found the Isuzu Rodeo abandoned at the Vagabond Inn at 3265 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Police were still searching for the gunmen this morning.

After the shootout, police cordoned off a large section of the Desert Inn parking lot. Casings and bullet fragments, marked by police with orange pylons, littered the ground near a casino entrance. Bullets struck several cars in the parking lot and a window at the New Frontier hotel-casino across the Strip. No one at the Frontier was injured.

"We're very, very lucky that somebody wasn't critically injured out here," Metro spokesman Officer Steve Meriwether said.

A steady stream of tourists was strolling the streets surrounding the Desert Inn when the shooting occurred, according to one witness.

Justin Erickson, manager of The Great Balloon Experience, an attraction that takes tourists on an overhead tour of the Strip, was just setting up the balloon across the street from the Desert Inn when he heard what he estimates to be 15 shots ring out.

"Everybody just kind of stopped (what they were doing) and were just kind of looking around," Erickson said.

Erickson said his and other employees' view of the shootout scene was blocked by a building. When warned by a police officer to take cover, Erickson and others locked themselves in the business office for about 10 minutes, he said.