My experiences are dated but they do not comport with what you are asserting re: Armored car /cash transport.Originally Posted by Cypher
Working for bigger national / international companies may be different.Cash courier work is also very different than working armed site or roving security. It is more like being a well armed, paranoid UPS man. Handcuffing people was not a thing.
Worked for three companies in the early 1990’s all local or regional. The quality and training of personnel varied but everyone carried a gun(or two) for self defense, not for the money, but not for show either. Several of my co-workers got into shootings and I had a couple occasions where I had to draw down on someone none of which resulted in negative consequences.
We had 4 basics “types” :
1) retired Cops (mostly NYPD)
2) young guys, some ex military, who were going through the process of becoming cops, firefighters etc or going to school
3) middle aged guys who were retired laid off from other careers. Many of these guys had worked union tradesman or at defense contractors. Some of these guys were ex military including some Vietnam vets.
4) a small core of guys for whom armored car work was a career.
Many robberies were ambushes initiated by gunfire so you were not gonna have a chance to hand over money in many cases.
Due to the era and local conditions we normally had three man crew, one driver, one guy handling the cash and one guy soley doing cover /security.
Cell phones were not a thing then but newspapers were. I learned a lot from the old NYPD guys, particularly contact / cover and MUC, they didn’t call it MUC but they were teaching it to me nearly 30 years ago.
Company 1 was an armored car company. You carried what ever you wanted, body armor was not mandatory but they gave you a uniform allowance you could use towards a vest. No formal training or qualifications. There were two robbery attempts which resulted in shootings while I was here. Both of those robberies were spotted early resulting in an exchange of gunfire with no one hit. There was also a shooting when a crew walked in on an unrelated robbery of a client (fast food place). They had forgotten to drop off a box of rolled pennies the day before when they picked up the cash from the drop safe and went there first thing in the morning to correct the error.
One successful robbery was the result of poor situational awareness on the part of the crew. Luckily no one got hurt. It was one of the few 2 man crews. Driver was in his mid 60s. The guard was a young guy but the kind of “officer friendly type” with “it can’t happens to me” written all over him. I think someone saw he was sloppy and took the opportunity.
One co-worker from here was later killed in an ambush at a bank while working for another company. It was supposedly an inside job set up by his partner.
Company 2 was an armored car company, regional. You could carry what ever as long as it was a min of 9mm /38. They did firearms training and a company qual once per year. They also had a contract with a local indoor range where you could get a range session and two boxes of commercial reloads one a month at company expense. If you didn’t have a gun they would provide you a brand new S&W 5906 or M64 and you could pay it off via payroll deduction.
Two big incidents while I was there were well armed badguys initiated ambushes and our guys returned fire, turned things around and shot/killed some of the would be robbers.
I had two incidents here where we spotted trouble ahead of time. One we spotted three guys in a car that didn’t look right as we were walking into a client location. Called the cops from inside and they nabbed them with two handguns and a shotgun. Two of them were on parole for prior robberies. Second we spotted someone following us, called in the plate and description. Car came back to a relative of a guy on parole for robbery. We were able to ID him and he was picked up on a parole violation.
Company 3 was a check cashing and payroll company. They had check cashing stores and did mobile check cashing at factories etc. they also pre processed cash pay envelopes for clients who paid in cash. You could carry what ever you wanted, no training but they fit you for and provided you a vest.
During my time there there were two seperate incidents in which a guy was killed from ambush. Both with shotguns. Both of those were inside jobs from the client side. A third guy was shot at contact distance with a pistol but saved by a vest he had borrowed that morning because he had forgotten his own. The money was lost / given up in all three of these incident.
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