2 guards die in swift ambush

IT WAS just after 8 a.m., and kids stood at Bustleton and Bleigh avenues in Rhawnhurst, waiting for the bus. Merchants unlocked their doors, ready for a new business day. Gamblers hopped onto a chartered bus headed to the casinos.

In a parking lot nearby, a killer waited.

Armored-truck guards Joe Alullo and William Widmaier - lifelong friends and retired city cops - drove past unaware.

They pulled up to the Wachovia Bank in a white Loomis armored truck to service the automated teller machine, one of many routine stops they made every day at area ATMs.

The killer climbed out of his parked car and headed toward the bank. As he walked, he pulled on black gloves and palmed a black handgun. Surveillance cameras spotted him, but no one could stop him.

The ambush was over in seconds.

The gunman shot one guard, then quickly rounded the truck and opened fire on the other. Three bullets ripped into Alullo, penetrating his chest and abdomen. Widmaier was shot once on the left side of his chest.

As Alullo and Widmaier lay dying on the parking lot, the gunman fired at a third guard, the armored truck's driver, inside. That guard suffered minor wounds when the bulletproof window cracked and shards of glass grazed his left arm. He was treated and released at Frankford Hospital-Torresdale.

The killer, after grabbing a money bag, fled to his car nearby. Yesterday afternoon, police were still trying to determine how much money he had gotten away with. The brutal robbery left two families mourning lost loved ones and a scared community on edge as detectives scrambled to catch a calculating killer.

"We're looking for an armed and dangerous male who had no regard for human life," an angry police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said at a news conference yesterday afternoon at police headquarters. "He never gave them a chance to give up the money. He basically just assassinated them."

Alullo and Widmaier never even made it to the hospital. They were pronounced dead at the scene. Neither was wearing a bulletproof vest - a decision that likely cost them their lives, law enforcement experts said.

"A good grade of body armor will stop tandem bullets," said Aaron West-rick, a police officer and body-armor expert who teaches criminal justice at Lake Superior State University. "They were shot in the chest, abdomen and torso area and that's what body armor is designed to cover."

The vests are designed to absorb the energy of bullets, enabling officers to stay on their feet and return fire, Westrick said.

Yet Loomis, like a lot of other cash-handling security firms, doesn't require its guards to wear such vests.

"While we encourage them, the choice to wear a vest is up to the individual," Loomis spokesman Mark Clark said.

But Loomis employees who want to wear one must pay for the vest, about $500, though the company offers "interest-free loans with open repayment terms to minimize the cost burden," Clark said.

Clark said Loomis, an international company with 440 locations and about 20,000 employees, has a good safety record. The last fatal shooting of a Loomis guard took place a decade ago on the West Coast, he said.

Industrywide, there have been 28 deaths involving security guards who distribute cash since 1997, Clark said.

"Our guards are trained to be risk managers and to survey the situation before they get out of the truck," Clark said. "In this case, I can only assume that they saw nothing out of the ordinary."

Alullo and Widmaier's three-person team operated out of Loomis' Pennsauken branch. Widmaier had worked for the company since 1989 and convinced Alullo to join him four years ago.

Alullo, 54, was a police sergeant who worked the overnight shift in the 7th District in the Far Northeast before retiring in 2000 after 27 years on the force, Johnson said.

Widmaier, 65, was an officer in the 7th who retired in 1989 after 23 years on the force, Johnson said.

Police declined to name the 69-year-old driver because he's a witness. They confirmed that he also was a retired police officer.

"Obviously, he's very, very emotionally upset," Clark said.

Even though Alullo and Widmaier were retired, cops across the city mourned their deaths as a loss in the family.

"Once you're a part of this department, you'll always be a part of this department," Johnson said.

Andrea Mack, a 7th District police dispatcher who worked for Alullo, agreed: "He was the nicest guy - he always thought of family first and put himself last. I just can't believe this happened to him."

The slayings sent the surrounding area into chaos, as police closed roads and businesses, schools locked down and investigators scurried across rooftops and scoured the streets and parking lots, looking for evidence.

Northeast High and Wilson and Rhawnhurst elementaries were in lockdown until almost noon, and police searched the nearby Roosevelt Mall, store by store, looking for the killer and clues.

Surveillance cameras at Wachovia and the Turf Club caught the killer on tape, which investigators examined yesterday. The videos clearly indicate that the ambush was premeditated by someone who knew the guards' schedule and routine, Johnson said.

Bob Wilson, 61, was at a Dunkin' Donuts nearby when he heard the gunshots.

"It sounded like a car backfiring," he said, as he cradled his toy poodle Romeo and surveyed the crime scene. "Then, I saw all the cop cars flying down here. [The killer] must have been staking out this place, because he knew exactly when to rob it."

Detectives found the security guards' money bag, emptied of its contents, under an awning at a nearby store. Johnson declined to say how much money the killer stole.

As police and news helicopters circled and hovered overhead, gawkers crowded the sidewalks outside the yellow crime tape, furiously lamenting the violence that has crept into previously safe neighborhoods.

"This neighborhood was one of the nicest in the city. But now you're seeing for-sale signs all over the place," said Gary Grisafi, a City Council candidate who lives three blocks from the bank. "This happened in the broad daylight. You're not safe anywhere, anytime, anymore."

John Pawlowski, of East Torresdale, who was trying to get to another nearby bank, agreed: "This is Philly's version of wearing red."

Despite initial reports that there were four gunmen, Johnson later emphasized that police were seeking just one gunman.

He is described as a black man, wearing a yellow baseball cap with a black logo, a black short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers. His car appeared to be a newer-model, four-door black Acura TL with a sunroof, Johnson said.

FBI spokeswoman Jerri Williams said agents were looking into other area bank robberies to uncover possible links to yesterday's attack.

Anyone who knows anything about the robbery and murders is urged to call 215-686-3334 or -3335. *