Drug Delivery Driver Briefly Kidnapped in L.A.

LOS ANGELES - A delivery truck driver was briefly kidnapped Oct. 7 by two robbers posing as police officers, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

The driver had just exited his vehicle in front of a Rite Aid drug store in Sherman Oaks. He was preparing to make an early-morning delivery of pharmaceuticals when two men armed with semiautomatic handguns approached him. Witnesses told the Times that both men were wearing sweatshirts with the word "Police" emblazoned on them. One of the suspects forced the driver back into his delivery truck and drove off about 6:45 a.m. The other followed the truck in a car. 

The delivery driver was found later that morning unharmed at Sepulveda Boulevard and Haynes Street, about two miles from the Rite Aid store. The delivery truck was later located in a liquor store parking lot at Reseda Avenue and Burbank Boulevard. All the pharmaceuticals were gone. Drugs stolen included Vicodin and OxyContin, police said. The robbery suspects remain at large.

Timothy J. Landrum, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Los Angeles field office, said federal officials are seeing an increase in the number of pharmacy and delivery truck robberies.