LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thieves got away with $30 million in cash from a money storage facility in Los Angeles by breaking into the building on Easter Sunday and cracking the safe. Now detectives are seeking to unravel the brazen cash heist, reportedly one of the largest on record in Los Angeles.
Police Cmdr. Elaine Morales told The Los Angeles Times, which broke the news of the crime, that the thieves were able to breach the building, as well as the safe where the money was stored. The operators of the business did not discover the massive theft until they opened the vault.
Media reports identified the facility as a location of GardaWorld, a global cash management and security company, in Sylmar. The Canada-based company, which also operates fleets of armored cars, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
LAPD Officer David Cuellar, a department spokesperson, confirmed that officers received a call for service at 4:30 a.m. Sunday at a business on the street where GardaWorld's Sylmar location is.
Several TV news crews were filming outside the facility Thursday morning in an industrial part of the San Fernando Valley neighborhood, which is about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles.
Aerial footage from KABC-TV showed a large cutout on the side of the building that appeared to be boarded up by a piece of plywood.
The LAPD and FBI on Thursday would only say that they were jointly investigating the theft “to determine the person or group responsible.” The agencies sought tips from the public, but they did not confirm how much was stolen or give other details such as the name of the company.
The Times reported that the break-in was among the largest cash burglaries in city history and surpassed that of any armored-car heist in Los Angeles.
Nearly two years ago, as much as $100 million in jewels and other valuables were stolen from a Brink’s big rig at a Southern California truck stop. The thieves haven’t been caught.
Jim McGuffey, an armored car expert and security consultant, called the Sylmar theft “a shock.” Any such facility should have two alarm systems and a seismic motion detector right on the safe, he said, as well as additional motion sensors throughout the building.
“For that kind of money, you don’t just walk in and walk out with it,” he told AP. “A facility should be protected from the top to the bottom and the sides.”
GardaWorld has a good reputation in the industry, McGuffey said, but every cash management company has “isolated incidents like this that just make no sense, but it happens to the best of them.”
Armored trucks are parked outside the GardaWorld facility in the Sylmar section of Los Angeles on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Thieves stole as much $30 million in an Easter Sunday burglary at a Los Angeles money storage facility in one of the largest cash heists in city history. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Armored trucks are parked outside the GardaWorld facility in the Sylmar section of Los Angeles on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Thieves stole as much $30 million in an Easter Sunday burglary at a Los Angeles money storage facility in one of the largest cash heists in city history. AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Armored trucks are parked outside the offices of GardaWorld in the Sylmar section of Los Angeles on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Thieves stole as much $30 million in an Easter Sunday burglary at a Los Angeles money storage facility in one of the largest cash heists in city history. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Armored trucks are parked outside the offices of GardaWorld in the Sylmar section of Los Angeles on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Thieves stole as much $30 million in an Easter Sunday burglary at a Los Angeles money storage facility in one of the largest cash heists in city history. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Clarence B. Jones says he thought a prankster was on the line when he answered the telephone and heard the person on the other end say they were calling from the White House.
“I said, ‘Is this a joke or is this serious?’" Jones recalled. The caller swore they were serious and was calling with the news that President Joe Biden wanted to recognize Jones with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Jones, 93, will be honored for his activism during the Civil Rights Movement. He's a lawyer who provided legal counsel to Martin Luther King Jr. and helped write the opening paragraphs of the “I Have a Dream” speech that King delivered at the Lincoln Memorial at the 1963 March on Washington.
Jones is among a diverse group of 19 individuals to be honored Friday by the Democratic president for making what the White House said are “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”
The 10 men and nine women hail from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy, science and religion. Three medals will be awarded posthumously.
“These nineteen Americans built teams, coalitions, movements, organizations, and businesses that shaped America for the better,” the announcement from the White House said. “They are the pinnacle of leadership in their fields. They consistently demonstrated over their careers the power of community, hard work, and science.”
Seven politicians are among the recipients: former New York mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore, Biden's former climate envoy John Kerry, former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who died in 2013, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Clyburn's endorsement of his longtime friend Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary is credited with helping Biden score a thundering win in South Carolina that helped power him to his party's nomination and ultimately the White House. Bloomberg mounted a short-lived bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
In addition to representing North Carolina in the Senate, Dole, who is a Republican, also served as transportation secretary and labor secretary and was president of the American Red Cross. She currently leads a foundation supporting military caregivers.
Pelosi is the first and only woman ever elected to the speaker's post, putting her second in the line of succession to the presidency.
Medgar Evers will receive posthumous recognition for his work more than six decades ago fighting segregation in Mississippi in the 1960s as the NAACP's first field officer in the state. He was 37 when he was fatally shot in the driveway of his home in June 1963.
Michelle Yeoh made history last year by becoming the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in “ Everything, Everywhere All at Once.”
Jim Thorpe, who died in 1953, was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.
Judy Shepard co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, named after her son, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who died in 1998 after he was beaten and tied to a fence.
Jones said he felt “very touched” after he digested what the caller had said.
“I'm 93 years old with some health challenges, but I woke up this morning thanks to the grace of God,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. “I'm looking forward to whatever the White House would like for me to do.”
The other medal recipients are:
— Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest who founded and runs Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention and rehabilitation program.
— Phil Donahue, a journalist and former daytime TV talk-show host.
— Katie Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history.
— Opal Lee, an activist who is best known for pushing to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Biden did so in 2021.
— Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space and the second female director of NASA's Johnson Space Center.
— Jane Rigby, an astronomer who is chief scientist of the world's most powerful telescope. She grew up in Delaware, Biden's home state.
— Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers and the first Hispanic woman to lead a national union in the U.S. The union has endorsed Biden's reelection bid and backed him in 2020.
In 2022, Biden presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people, including gymnast Simone Biles, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and gun-control advocate Gabby Giffords.
Biden also knows how it feels to receive the medal. As president, Barack Obama presented Biden, his vice president, with the medal a week before their administration ended in 2017.
FILE - Former Vice President Al Gore speaks about climate change at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
FILE - Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole listens to a speaker during a memorial service for former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., Dec. 11, 2021, in Russell, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
FILE - Phil Donahue attends the 2019 American Icon Awards at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on May 19, 2019, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, speaks during an interview in his office at the State Department, Feb. 6, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, speaks at the opening of the U.S. Pavilion at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 8, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
FILE - Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., speaks at a ceremony to award a Congressional Gold Medal to baseball player Larry Doby at the Capitol, Dec. 13, 2023, in Washington.(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, speaks at a news conference at Balletto Vineyards in Santa Rosa, Calif., April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi walks to a news conference to address sea level rise along the city's waterfront in San Francisco, Jan. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
FILE - Michelle Yeoh arrives at the 10th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony on April 13, 2024, at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Clarence B. Jones poses for a photo before was presented with the American Jewish Congress' "Isaiah Award," March 1, 2006, in New York. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff, File)
