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NEWARK (CBS/AP) ― An armed security officer making a delivery near University Hospital was shot in the head and killed Friday morning, authorities said.

Authorities said the man was making a cash drop at a Town Check Cashing store in University Plaza, a strip mall, when he was approached by two men shortly after 9 a.m.

The guard, identified as 47-year-old Nestor De La Rosa of Paterson, reached for his gun but was shot first in the head. He was pronounced dead at University Hospital at 10:02 a.m.

The fatal shot was the only one fired, Essex County Prosecutor Paula T.Dow said. No arrests had been made by evening, she said.

Dow said that De La Rosa's female partner, who was not with him at the time of the shooting, was questioned but is not considered a suspect.

"At this time, we are not focusing on her as an accomplice," Dow said.

Boonton Police Capt. Curtis James, who knew De La Rosa through his work as a security officer with the Boonton Housing Authority, said Newark police informed him of De La Rosa's death Friday morning.

"He was a great guy," James said. "Some of my guys were close with him."

James recounted an incident in 2001 in which De La Rosa saved people from a burning building across from the housing authority's office.

De La Rosa had recently been employed by Internal Intelligence Services, Inc., a private Newark-based security company that provides uniformed security services public and private businesses. However, he was not working for the company when Friday's incident occurred, president Gerald Gregory said.

Gregory said De La Rosa had worked for Internal Intelligence for several years but may have been working for the check cashing company or for another security company on Friday.

"We're very saddened because we've known this person for a long time and he was a good person and very dedicated to his job," Gregory said.

Authorities said De La Rosa worked for Town Check Cashing for seven years.

De La Rosa worked part-time as a security officer for the Boonton Housing Authority for several years and was recently put on the payroll there, according to executive director Sherry Sims.

"He was dedicated, loyal and committed to being a security officer," Sims said. "The tenants loved him; we all loved him. He was just a part of the fabric of our housing authority. He had a great interaction with police. They confided in him when they needed him, and he confided in them when he need them."

Authorities could not immediately say how much money, if any, the suspects stole. Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy told The Star-Ledger of Newark that investigators recovered a bag containing $11,000 at the scene.

"This looked like it was a planned, executed attack," McCarthy said. "It was an attempted robbery, but we're not even sure if the robbery was completed at this point."

Immediately after the shooting, police blocked off an area near the hospital and were searching a two-story apartment complex directly across from Society Hill, a neighborhood of new town homes. Residents from Society Hill said they saw the apartment complex being evacuated.

Reacting to eyewitness accounts that men ran into a nearby apartment complex, police emerged with a man in handcuffs. Dow would not say if the man was a suspect.

Friday's shooting is the 55th homicide in Newark this year.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)