Norco '80

by Peter Houlahan

  “You down there, hurry up,” Delgado ordered Marlene Faust. Faust had been the last of the tellers to obey Delgado’s command to sit down, taking time to make sure a stunned customer at her window complied before taking a seat herself. While Delgado had been busy threatening Denise DeMarco, Faust had remained calm enough to trigger the silent alarm button mounted beside her drawer.

  Once pressed, the alarm system installed at the Security Pacific Bank in Norco relayed the alert over a dedicated phone line directly to the police department dispatch center. Officers in the field were immediately dispatched to the local Security Pacific Bank for a 211—bank robbery in progress. But Marlene Faust’s silent alarm would do the customers and employees in Norco no good. Due to an installation error, the alarm had been transmitted to the police department of the neighboring city of Corona. Within minutes, police units were descending on the Corona branch of the Security Pacific National Bank, five miles away from the scene of the robbery in Norco.

  Sitting in her pickup truck in lane 2 of the drive-up banking window, Elaine Jones had just put her checkbook into the capsule and dropped it inside the pneumatic delivery tube when she noticed all the tellers on the other side of the plexiglass window had suddenly vanished. In their place, Jones saw a man in a ski mask standing atop the teller counter swinging the barrel of a shotgun back and forth. “Is that what I think it is?” she called over to the man in a car in the lane closest to the bank. The man nodded. “Yeah, I think so,” he said. Jones leaned as far back in her seat as she could, not sure what to do. Turning to her right, she got the attention of a woman in lane 3. “There’s a bank robbery in progress. See if you can get out of here and get some help.”

  Behind the teller counter, Sharon Marzolf walked the bag of money back to Manny Delgado, who was growing more jittery and threatening as the seconds ticked by. “Do you want the coins too?” Marzolf asked him.

  “Every fucking bit of it,” Delgado answered.

  This guy has no idea what he’s doing, Marzolf thought. What bank robber wants a bunch of heavy coins? She dutifully went down the teller line again, emptying the coin changers into the bag and then handing it up to Delgado. He took the bag, ordering the tellers down to the floor again. The four sat down. “Is this good?” Marzolf asked.

  “I want you belly down, kissing the fucking floor,” Delgado said, waving the riot gun at them. The women did as they were told.

  While Manny Delgado terrorized the teller line, Christopher Harven worked on getting at the big money. “Get up,” Harven shouted at assistant manager Sharon Higman, now seated on the floor beside her desk after her attempt to trigger the silent alarm. He crossed the bank toward Higman, his rifle trained on the woman. Higman stood, keeping her hands visible. “I want your keys,” Harven ordered.

  “I don’t have any keys,” Higman replied.

  Chris lifted the rifle to his shoulder. “Give me the fucking keys.”

  Higman followed the simple rule of bank robbery: Give them whatever they want and get them out of the bank as soon as possible. “He’s the manager,” she said calmly, pointing to branch manager Ron Richter seated on the floor a few feet away. “I’ll get the keys from him.”

  Harven turned his rifle on Richter. “Come on, Manager, we’re going across the lobby.” He motioned back to Higman with the AR. “You come too.”

  Higman knew that she and Richter were about to have a serious problem on their hands: There was no more money in the vault. Just an hour before, Richter had called for an armored car delivery of additional bills to meet the end-of-day paycheck rush from the nearby Naval Sea Systems Command base. But the delivery was late. Anticipating a volatile situation that might develop once the gunman realized there was no more cash in the main vault, Higman called over to the second assistant branch manager, Cynthia Schlax. “Cindy, give me the keys to the nests,” she said, referring to the individual teller back-up currency in the vault, usually about $2,000 to $5,000 each.

  Chris Harven was in no mood for the transferring of keys from one employee to the other. “Stop stalling!” he exploded at Higman. Pressing the barrel of the gun into her ribs, he ordered the woman to sit down again. “You come instead,” he said to Schlax. As soon as she was on her feet, Harven herded Schlax and Richter across the lobby.

  “One minute left!” George Smith called out, checking his watch as he continued to pace the floor back and forth, menacing the prone customers with the Heckler. On all sides of him, George could see the faces of bank employees he knew, people who had greeted him with a smile while he conducted his business there. “Hurry the fuck up!”

  Smith looked over at Russell Harven, who upon entering the bank had dutifully headed to the west entrance facing Hamner to guard against anyone going in or out during the heist. Standing behind an artificial ficus tree, Harven was transfixed on the activity within the bank, neglecting the only task he had been assigned. “Watch the fucking door!” Smith barked at him.

  When Russ turned back, it was too late. A woman opened the side entrance and walked inside the bank clutching her purse. Already a nervous young lady, Sheila Deno now seemed utterly paralyzed trying to comprehend the scene before her. Almost as surprised as Deno, Russell Harven stepped out from behind the tree, lifted the “Shorty” AR to his shoulder, aimed it at Deno from five feet away, and ordered her to the ground. Deno stood stone still, her eyes darting from the bodies strewn facedown across the lobby floor to the man standing on the teller counter waving a shotgun and back to the one in the ski mask aiming the gun in her face.

  “Get the fuck down!” Russ yelled again.

  Sharon Higman, seated on the floor at Deno’s feet, reached up and took ahold of Deno’s wrist, yanking her to the floor.

  The moment vault teller Janet Dessormeau realized there was a robbery in progress, she had pulled closed the steel side entrance door to the vault, locking herself and employee Gail Altenburger inside. However, she had no time to swing shut the heavy main vault door. Now the only thing between the two women and the heavily armed man coming toward them was the grill gate.

  “You better get this vault open,” Harven threatened, sticking the barrel of the Heckler through the bars of the gate, “or there will be a lot of dead fucking people in here.”

  “Janet,” manager Ron Richter said in as calm a voice as he could muster. “Open it up for us.”

  Dessormeau nodded, went to the side door, and opened it. Chris pushed Richter and Cindy Schlax inside and then shoved Dessormeau up against the wall of the vault with his rifle. “Don’t look at me,” he said. Dessormeau shifted her eyes to the floor as Schlax opened the teller nests, hoping Harven might not notice that the larger reserve area of the vault was completely bare. Ron Richter scooped bills from the teller nests into a drawstring bag held by Schlax. “We have no reserve currency,” she whispered to him. “I know,” he said.

  “Stop wasting time,” Chris growled, poking Richter in the ribs with the gun.

  George called out from the lobby area. “Thirty seconds left!”

  At the west entrance to the bank, Russell Harven had another problem on his hands. Hiding behind the plastic tree again, Russell did not notice Miriam Tufts approaching the door to the bank until the woman had pulled it wide open. Tufts caught sight of the customers on the floor and froze in the doorway. Russ stepped out from behind the plant to face her. Tufts looked back at the two eyes staring out from the ski mask and then glanced down at the jet-black assault rifle in the man’s hands. Without a word, Tufts turned and left, the door swinging shut behind her. “Don’t go in there, the place is being robbed,” she warned two customers crossing the parking lot.

  At the same time, seventeen-year-old getaway driver Billy Delgado was running into trouble of his own outside the main entrance. Heart pounding, gulping in shallow breaths, Billy had been so busy checking mirrors and leaning across the passenger seat to see what was going on in the bank that he never saw Debi Paggen approaching. Paggen was running late and just
wanted to pop into the bank quickly to get some cash for the weekend. Hurrying to the entrance, she walked directly in front of the green van. Something about that nervous-looking kid on the other side of the windshield caused her to pause and look back just as she reached for the entrance door. When she did, Paggen found Billy Delgado leaning across the passenger seat pointing a handgun out the window at her.

  Paggen let go of the door handle. “Go ahead and rob the bank,” she said, “I’m not going in there.”

  The boy with the gun said nothing, his hand shaking as he aimed it at her. Paggen backed away slowly and then turned toward the rear of the van and out of his line of fire.

  At the two-minute mark, George Smith called out again. “Time. Now!”

  Clutching his bag of coins and bills, Manny Delgado leapt down from the teller counter and made his way to the middle of the bank. Russell Harven abandoned his post at the west entrance and joined the other two. When Chris Harven did not immediately appear, Smith ran to the vault. “Quit stalling,” he screamed at bank manager Ron Richter. “It’s taking too much time!”

  But they had already run out of time. Two minutes earlier, a customer getting out of her car at the Redlands Federal Savings Bank on the other side of the intersection happened to look in the direction of the Security Pacific Bank. Racing inside Redlands Federal, the woman approached teller Maria Casa Grande. “I just saw four men with guns go inside the bank across the street!”

  At 3:32 p.m., veteran dispatcher Gladys Wiza took an incoming call at the headquarters of the Riverside County Sheriff. Wiza scrawled the info on a note card and handed it to deputy Gary Keeter, who was working the dispatch mic at the time. At about the same moment George Smith yelled “Time. Now!” Keeter dropped a priority alert tone over the Riverside County Sheriff’s radio system: Riverside to all Norco units. 211 in progress, Security Pacific Bank, Fourth and Hamner.

  Billy Delgado had just slid the .45 Colt automatic back into the ankle holster after scaring off Debi Paggen when his side mirror lit up with flashing blue and red lights. Jerking his head around, he settled on a police car making a left turn from Hamner onto Fourth Street, its light bar whirling. Billy fumbled for the walkie-talkie in his lap and pressed the talk button.

  Inside the vault, George Smith’s radio crackled to life. “The cops are here,” came the trembling voice of Billy Delgado.

  George and Chris looked at each other. “There’s no fucking way,” Chris said.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” called Smith, bolting from the vault area to the north entrance of the bank.

  Still lying on the floor of the bank lobby, eighteen-year-old James Kirkland kept his cheek to the carpet as the boots of the four men stomped by inches from his head. “We’ve been seen,” one of the men called out as they passed. “Let’s go, we’ve been seen.” The door flew open and the men ran out. Before the door swung itself closed again, Kirkland heard a final voice yell, “There’s one!”

  That’s when the shooting started.

  It was 3:35 p.m.

  5

  THE END OF THE WORLD

  May 9, 1980. Norco, California.

  THE ONLY WAY RIVERSIDE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DISPATCHER GARY KEETER could explain what went down in Norco that day was that it had all happened so goddamn fast.

  Riverside to Norco units, have a 211 in progress at the Security Pacific Bank at Fourth and Hamner.

  3-Edward-50, 1097, deputy Glyn Bolasky responded two seconds later, indicating his radio ID and 1097, the code for “officer on scene.”

  Bolasky was already 1097? thought Keeter. He was never en route. Riverside to all, clear the air, Keeter added, instructing all nonessential radio traffic to cease. Keeter’s flat, rural accent made the request sound more like Riverside t’all . . .

  Keeter was a veteran patrol deputy on desk duty at the time because of a blown-out knee. When it came to dispatch, the woman seated next to him, Gladys Wiza, was the real pro. But at that moment, Keeter’s patrolman instincts were telling him that Glyn Bolasky might be in more danger than he knew. With everything going down so fast, did Bolasky understand he was on scene of a confirmed 211 in progress, rather than a 211 silent, most of which turned out to be false alarms? Bolasky ought to be holding off for backup, but so far he had not reported his exact position to Keeter. Was Bolasky headed straight into a 211 in progress all alone?

  Still on the phone with the Redlands Federal Bank teller who had reported the robbery, Gladys Wiza was furiously writing information on an index card. She slid the card in front of Keeter. Keeter looked down. Shit, he thought, now we got a real problem.

  CHRIS EVANS AND HER FRIEND JENNIE LEWIS WERE ON FOURTH STREET IN Evans’s black 1979 Chevy Camaro waiting for the light while checking out the cute deputy about to make a left turn in front of them. Is that “Sexually Frustrated”? Evans asked, laughing.

  Lewis worked at Winchell’s Donut House, where the girls had nicknames for all the cops who frequently stopped in to chat them up. She leaned forward to get a closer look. Nah, that’s not “Sexually Frustrated,” she said. I don’t know who that guy is.

  The light bar on the roof of the deputy’s car abruptly lit up. Well, whoever he is, there he goes, Evans said as the Chevy Impala patrol car made the turn onto Fourth, crossing in front of them. Just then the two young women heard what they thought was a pack of firecrackers going off and a hard thud! as something hit the Camaro. An object came through the driver’s-side window and struck Evans above the eye and bounced into the lap of Jennie Lewis in the passenger seat. Evans put a hand to her head. What the hell was that?

  Lewis lifted a pancaked and melted-looking piece of gray lead out of her lap and studied it. The furthest thing from her mind was that she might be looking at a bullet.

  The light changed, and the two girls continued across Hamner.

  Deputy Glyn Bolasky left his siren off as he made the left onto Fourth Street headed toward the east entrance of the parking lot, scanning the lot and bank building as he went. The only thing between him and the bank were a pair of split rail fences marking a horse path bordering the parking area. The place was busy with customers parked in the lot or waiting in the drive-through lanes, but nothing looked all that unusual.

  Bolasky heard a muffled popping noise and saw red and blue plastic falling around his unit. What the hell is going on with my light bar? he thought. A bulb had been replaced on the Visibar that morning and Bolasky figured it must have blown when he turned it on. If Bolasky had not had his windows up and air conditioner running, he would have recognized the popping noise was really the crack of an assault rifle. Had he heard that, Bolasky probably would have realized that what sounded like bottles breaking in the street was a bullet shattering his light bar. And if he had not been distracted by colored plastic raining down around him, he would have spotted the man in the ski mask and military poncho standing next to a green van aiming the assault rifle at him. And if Glyn Bolasky had seen that, he certainly would not have done what he did next.

  At that very moment, Gary Keeter was radioing Bolasky the information written on the card Gladys Wiza had slid in front of him moments before.

  3-Edward-50, the suspect vehicle is a green van with weapons.

  If Bolasky heard the transmission at all, it was too late to do anything about it. As he swung his patrol car into the bank parking lot, four men in black ski masks and olive-drab field jackets came into view standing no more than two car lengths in front of Bolasky’s unit. An instant later, Bolasky’s windshield glazed into an intricate spider web as three rounds crashed through it. He felt his face and arms go hot as flying glass and metal peppered him like birdshot. The young deputy’s mind began to play tricks on him. This isn’t real. It must be a training exercise. What the hell is this?

  The side mirror of the Impala exploded, snapping Bolasky back to reality. He threw his body across the bench seat to take cover below the dashboard. Bolasky reached up and grabbed his radio mic. Seconds after reporting a gree
n van with weapons, Gary Keeter heard a desperate, nearly unintelligible transmission come across the radio, the rapid popping of gunfire clearly audible in the background.

  3-Edward-50 taking fire!

  Keeter, Gladys Wiza, and a third dispatcher, Sharon Markum, whipped their heads around to look at each other. Only twenty-eight seconds after initial dispatch, was it possible Bolasky was already taking fire? How could things have gone so badly so fast? Keeter keyed up the mic. It’s a green van. It’s Fourth and Hamner. They are shooting.

  They were all shooting now, the gunshots cracking with the irregular cadence of popping corn. Manny Delgado walked in front of the van, lowered the riot gun, and unloaded several booming shotgun blasts. “We’ve got a hostage in here!” George Smith screamed in Bolasky’s direction, but the only thing Glyn Bolasky could hear were bullets ripping into the metal surrounding him, blowing out windows, the muzzle blasts echoing back from a cinder block wall bordering the lot behind him. There was sharp pain in his left shoulder as a round came through the dashboard, sending fragments of lead and copper jacketing into his flesh.

  Whoever these people were, Glyn Bolasky had no doubt they were going to kill him if he did not get the hell out of there. Still lying across the bench seat with his head below the line of the dashboard, he grabbed the steering wheel with one hand, jerked the gearshift on the steering column into reverse with the other, and slammed on the accelerator. Bolasky could still hear the bullets pinging off the Impala as it shot backward out of the parking lot, traveling thirty feet east on Fourth Street before skidding to a stop sideways in the middle of the road.

  As he rose up and threw the release on the shotgun mount positioned at the center of the dashboard, Bolasky felt blood running down his face and arm. He clutched at the mic again. I’ve been hit!

  Two seconds later, Keeter sent out the transmission that changed everything: Officer hit. Clear the air. 1199.

  Across Riverside County, every patrol car in the field, every detective at a desk, every undercover narc on stakeout, every helicopter in the sky, every law enforcement officer from California Highway Patrol, Riverside PD, or RSO with a gun stopped what he or she was doing to converge on the intersection of Fourth and Hamner.