Norco '80

by Peter Houlahan

  Brown sat staring at his shattered windshield in disbelief. It did not feel as though he had been shot, but his body seemed to sting everywhere. He felt blood on his neck and coming from his left knee. His left arm burned. A bullet from a .223 had struck his hood just below the windshield and fragmented, penetrating his left arm with more than one hundred tiny shards of copper jacketing from his shoulder down to his wrist. Another had come through the door, also fragmenting enough to puncture his leg with fifteen shards while leaving half of the slug buried so deep into his knee it would never be taken out. But it was the first bullet that should have killed him. That one had punched a hole through his windshield and grazed the back of his neck. Had Herman Brown not ducked the instant he saw rifle barrels pointed at him, he would have been shot through the face.

  Turning onto Etiwanda directly behind Brown had been a green pickup truck driven by Gilbert Peña. Peña was on his way home from work when he decided to stop at a grocery store at Limonite and Etiwanda. Making a left turn onto Etiwanda behind Brown, Peña’s windshield suddenly shattered and he felt something graze the side of his face. More bullets struck Peña’s truck, shattering his rear window. Then his side mirror blew up. He saw a yellow truck pass him and the face of a man who seemed to be sitting out of the passenger window. The man was still shooting at him. Peña dove to the floorboard of his pickup. Two more bullets came through his door, and another missed the cab and went through his tailgate. And then it suddenly stopped. He could still hear gunfire, but it was getting farther away. He opened the door and stepped out of his truck, dazed.

  A woman rushed up to him. “Are you hurt?” Patricia Sanchez asked breathlessly, seeing blood on Peña’s face and shirt.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Peña answered, feeling his body. “What happened?”

  “Didn’t you see that son of a bitch with a machine gun?” said Sanchez.

  THE NEXT TO TAKE FIRE AT LIMONITE AND ETIWANDA WAS DAVE MADDEN. MINUTES earlier, Mad Dog had been listening to the radio traffic and predicted the truck would come out on Etiwanda near Limonite. Reaching the intersection, Madden threw the release on his shotgun, grabbed the weapon, and positioned himself in a field a few dozen feet off Etiwanda. Madden’s plan was to empty his shotgun through the front windshield of the truck the instant it turned off Holmes. A moment later, he heard another radio report on the suspect vehicle that made him change his prediction and race off in the direction of Hamner.

  When he heard the truck had changed its direction again, Madden sped back toward Etiwanda, receiving the warning from Parkes to get your shotgun out immediately seconds before making the right turn, falling in just behind Gilbert Peña. By the time he saw the yellow truck, all Mad Dog could do was jam on the brakes and duck beneath the dashboard. The two vehicles passed each other so quickly that the men shooting from the back barely had time to fire off a couple of rounds at Madden before they were through the intersection at Limonite.

  Had Madden held his original position, it was possible he could have killed both Chris Harven and Manny Delgado with four shotgun blasts through the windshield at close range, ending the pursuit right there. For years, Dave Madden would roll the sequence of events over and over in his mind, wondering . . . What if?

  Madden turned around and fell into the pursuit line behind Parkes, Chisolm, and Doug Earnest. Seeing deputy Herman Brown’s unit shot up on 63rd Street, Madden slowed. “You okay?” he mouthed. Brown looked dazed, but waved Madden off. Mad Dog took off after the truck while radioing dispatch. Officer hit, Etiwanda and 63rd.

  DEPUTY KEN MCDANIELS WAS THE THIRD MAN TO BE SHOT AT THE INTERSECTION of Limonite and Etiwanda. McDaniels had been approaching on Limonite when he saw the yellow truck blow through the intersection in front of him, one gunman standing in the bed and another out the passenger window aiming a rifle over the top of the cab. Although the yellow truck raced across the intersection at high speed, McDaniels was sure he had seen something on the face of the man leaning out of the cab window. He would testify later that the man had been smiling.

  McDaniels, who would have been at his last radiation session at that very moment had the doctors not miscalculated the number of treatments, turned left on Etiwanda less than a hundred feet behind the truck. As he straightened his unit out of the turn, he took a round from George Smith’s .308 through his windshield that fragmented on impact, penetrated the heavy metal screen between the front and back seats, and blew out his entire rear window. McDaniels felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. I’ve been hit, he radioed. Hearing even more gunfire whizzing by his window, McDaniels pulled his unit to the side of the road and ducked down. A car skidded to a stop beside him.

  “You okay?” Doug Earnest asked him from his CHP unit.

  “Yeah, but we are taking fire right now,” McDaniels called out to him.

  “I know,” Earnest replied. “I already got too close to these guys once.” The next moment, the big patrolman was gone, taking off directly into the firing line of George Smith.

  McDaniels pushed himself up in the seat, pulled back onto the road, and headed north on Etiwanda until he reached the Pedley firehouse. He stopped in front of the engine bay doors to check how badly he had been injured. He was bleeding through his uniform.

  The fire chief at Pedley had been monitoring the pursuit on scanner and ran out when he saw McDaniels. “What the hell is going on out there?” the chief asked.

  “I think I just got shot,” McDaniels said, unbuttoning his shirt to see where he had been hit. “It’s not bad,” he said, ready to rejoin the pursuit.

  “No way,” the firefighter said, opening the passenger door and jumping in beside McDaniels so he could not drive away. “You’re going to the hospital.”

  McDaniels shook his head and grabbed the mic. I’m on my way to the hospital, he radioed. I took a round in the shoulder.

  When the transmission came in from Ken McDaniels to RSO dispatch, Gary Keeter, Gladys Wiza, and Sharon Markum looked up from what they were doing. Only twelve minutes and twenty-seven seconds since Keeter’s initial 211 dispatch and they already had five deputies wounded. The shooting of McDaniels, Herman Brown, and civilian Gilbert Peña—the last of which dispatch still knew nothing about—had occurred on a one-hundred-yard stretch of Etiwanda in a matter of ten seconds. Now reports had the yellow truck leaving Wineville and headed into the neighborhood of Mira Loma. As unimaginable as the first twelve and half minutes had been, something told Gary Keeter things were about to get worse.

  7

  THE GRAVEYARD OF CARS

  May 9, 1980. Mira Loma, California.

  ROLF PARKES HAD JUST CROSSED THROUGH THE INTERSECTION OF LIMONITE and Etiwanda when a round from George Smith’s .308 whistled through his windshield, hissing maliciously as it passed within inches of his head before blowing out what remained of his back window. Parkes lay on the brakes and pulled his Dodge Monaco patrol unit onto the dirt shoulder.

  The moment Parkes pulled over, Smith put a round into Fred Chisholm’s radiator. The rookie slid his cruiser onto the shoulder behind Parkes, dove out of the vehicle, and lay down behind it for cover. Seeing the RSO units on the side of the road, Dave Madden pulled behind them while taking fire himself. “This guy’s got us dialed in,” Parkes told him. “We gotta give him some space.” Madden agreed. We’re gonna have to lay back because of the amount of rounds they’re firing at us, he radioed dispatch.

  Doug Earnest thought differently. Notoriously aggressive in vehicle pursuits, CHP officers took it very personally when a motorist tried to outrun them, and as a personal defeat whenever one succeeded. Earnest was already feeling very insulted by these clowns for shooting up his patrol unit at 68th and Schleisman. It was no surprise then that after pausing momentarily to check on the wounded McDaniels, Earnest was right back in the fray, this time at lead position in the pursuit line. After pulling over to give George Smith’s .308 a few hundred yards of space, Dave Madden pulled into the number-two spot behind Earnest with Park
es and Chisholm right behind.

  A good quarter mile ahead of him, Earnest saw the yellow truck take a hard right off Etiwanda onto 54th Street, the road marking the southern border of the suburban neighborhood of Mira Loma. As aggressive as they might be, the CHP were anything but reckless, easily the most highly skilled and well trained in the business of chasing down a fleeing suspect. Earnest knew better than to come barreling around a blind corner in a pursuit. When he got to 54th Street, he slowed to a crawl and began to edge the nose of his Dodge patrol unit into the intersection. Immediately two rounds tore into the metal hood of his vehicle. Through a break in the shrubbery that had been blocking his view, he saw the truck at a dead stop in the roadway just a half block down 54th, three men aiming rifles back at him. Doug Earnest had just been ambushed. Only his instincts and training had saved him.

  With rounds striking the nose of Earnest’s patrol unit, above him the newest entry into the pursuit arrived on scene. Riverside Police helicopter Baker-1 with spotter Paul Benoit on board had finally located the pursuit and swooped in to hover five hundred feet above the yellow truck. The loud chopping of the rotor blades drew the gun barrels of George, Russ, and Manny away from Doug Earnest.

  Shoot the fucking thing down, George said, lifting the barrel of the .308 skyward. But before he could get off a shot, Chris hit the accelerator again. As George and Russ tumbled across the bed, the truck raced a hundred yards up 54th and then left onto Troth Street, plunging into the heart of Mira Loma.

  IT WAS A BUSY TIME OF DAY FOR MIRA LOMA, ESPECIALLY ON A FRIDAY. KIDS were still returning from school, dozens of them walking along the dirt shoulders or in school buses working their way through the four-square-mile grid of suburban homes. Many of the adults had ended their workweek early and were already home watering their lawns, checking their mailboxes, or chatting with neighbors in the driveway. But now the residents of Mira Loma stopped and turned their eyes to watch Baker-1 overhead. The wail of sirens began to fill the air, coming closer as the sound of gunfire reached their ears for the first time. In an area familiar with trouble, it was obvious to the people of Mira Loma that something very big was on its way.

  The moment the yellow truck with masked men standing in the back shooting in all directions entered Troth Avenue, children and adults scattered, diving behind parked cars or fleeing back into their houses. Chris zigzagged his way through the neighborhood to confound any attempt by Baker-1 to establish an intercept point for the units on the ground. One block up Troth, right one block on Jurupa, left onto Marlatt . . . With Baker-1 outside its usual Riverside City patrol area, Paul Benoit was less familiar with the street names and could not always keep up. The narrow streets lined with houses, rows of oleander, and cinder block walls built right up to the road prevented pursuing units from getting a visual on anything coming at them from a side street. With only a general idea of the location of their suspects, most never saw the yellow truck until it was right on them.

  Rolf Parkes had anticipated the truck’s direction and was limping his shot-up unit along Marlatt when the truck suddenly appeared from his left coming off Jurupa, making a left turn directly in front of him. All three gunmen opened up on him, hitting his vehicle again. Parkes felt the Monaco pull sharply to the side. He slowed down and rolled toward the intersection ahead.

  Doug Earnest’s CHP unit came out of Jurupa directly in front of Parkes and turned up Marlatt in close pursuit of the truck. Way too close, in Parkes’s opinion. Earnest was trailing the truck as closely as fifty feet at times, despite taking constant gunfire.

  Dave Madden came up Marlatt and slowed beside Parkes to see if he was okay.

  They’re northbound, go, go. Go, go, go! Parkes radioed, motioning Madden on. Northbound! GO!

  Madden took off, but not before he radioed Parkes. You got a flat tire, Rolf.

  Fred Chisholm appeared from Jurupa Road and skidded to a stop. Pull over, get your shotgun, and come on, he radioed Parkes.

  Rolf grabbed the gun and jumped in the passenger seat beside Chisholm, leaving the Monaco dead on the side of the road. Chisholm took off again, driving with his head below the dashboard, telescoping up only long enough to keep the car on the road. “Where are they, Rolf?” the jittery rookie asked repeatedly. “Can you see them?” For the moment, Rolf could not.

  Like Chisholm, Doug Earnest was now driving mostly with his head ducked down below the dashboard. He did not see the truck make a sudden right turn onto 50th Street, and drove straight through the intersection without turning. A young boy ran out onto Marlatt, pointing wildly down 50th. Earnest slammed on the brakes, threw his patrol car into reverse, tires screeching, and headed east on 50th over a low rise in the road. When he crested the hill midblock, the yellow truck was stopped in the middle of the road less than fifty feet in front of him. They’re ambushing me again, Earnest thought, laying on the brakes. But this time the men in the truck did not fire on him, never even pointed their guns in his direction. They all seemed to be looking at a house near the corner of Dodd and 50th. Earnest did not know that the men were looking at their own house, assessing their chances of bailing out of the truck and into their barbed wire compound and the safety of the pit.

  Chris knew it was impossible with Baker-1 overhead and cops traversing the neighborhood. George had far too much faith in their little fortress with its half-built tunnel anyhow. It was one thing to hold off starving marauders staggering around a postapocalyptic wasteland, but quite another to take a stand against a SWAT team with a helicopter circling overhead. Chris hit the gas and turned left up Dodd toward Bellegrave Avenue, a major road to the north just a few blocks away.

  When Doug Earnest tried to follow, a school bus full of kids obliviously turned in front of him, getting between him and the truck. He jockeyed for position until he was finally able to swing his patrol unit around the bus and race past it. Behind him, Dave Madden did the same. By then, however, Earnest had lost sight of the truck. He put out a transmission to warn patrolman Bill Crowe, the other CHP officer in the vicinity, which direction the truck had been headed. It was a transmission Earnest would regret making for the rest of his life.

  BILL CROWE WAS A RELATIVE LATECOMER TO LAW ENFORCEMENT, JOINING the California Highway Patrol in his late twenties. Originally from Detroit, Crowe moved around a lot as a child, joined the army in 1965, and, like George Smith, was trained in artillery, including tactical nuclear battlefield weapons. After the service, he moved to California, tried his hand at a few different jobs, and began taking college classes at night. When he finally decided to take a shot at police work, he was one of three applicants out of thousands to be offered a position with the elite California Highway Patrol.

  Crowe was sent to the Santa Ana station in the heart of Orange County for training and assigned to work alongside a six-year veteran named Doug Earnest. Earnest took to Crowe immediately. Seven years older, six foot six inches tall, and 250 pounds to Crowe’s five foot nine, 150 pounds, Earnest looked after Crowe as he would a little brother. The two men grew close. Although Crowe was more than capable on his own in the field, Earnest remained protective of him even after Crowe completed his training. Earnest seemed to appear whenever Crowe called for backup, no matter what beat he was covering that day.

  But on May 9, 1980, they were covering the same beat: Interstate 15 and the Pomona Freeway in the area of Norco, Rubidoux, and Mira Loma. Unlike Earnest, Crowe did not have a scanner and could not hear Riverside Sheriff’s radio traffic. He learned of the 1199 in Norco only when Earnest radioed to CHP that he was self-dispatching to the scene of an officer down. Crowe finished issuing a ticket to a motorist on the Pomona Freeway, jumped in his patrol car, and headed for Hamner Avenue, sometimes reaching speeds of up to one hundred miles per hour on the wide surface streets. His only information about the location and direction of the suspect vehicle came from Earnest’s updates over the CHP frequency.

  Doug Earnest was doing his best to feed Crowe as much current information as po
ssible, even while under heavy fire. Crowe had once lived in the area and knew the streets relatively well, but Earnest did not want him stumbling into heavy gunfire at a blind intersection. Following Earnest’s reports, Crowe was eastbound on Bellegrave when he saw Riverside deputy A. J. Reynard standing beside his vehicle at Troth Street stopping traffic. Crowe hit the brakes and used the external PA speaker on his roof to relay the latest information from Earnest. “They’re northbound on Dodd, headed for Bellegrave right up there,” he called. Riverside deputy Rudy Romo pulled beside Crowe and together they sped off, hoping to get a roadblock set up at Dodd before the suspects arrived there first. Reynard scrambled to his unit and raced to catch up.

  Bellegrave Avenue was a long, straight, two-lane stretch of road marking the northern boundary of Mira Loma. On the north side was nothing but pasture and vineyards. To the south, the side streets of Mira Loma terminated at T-intersections every quarter mile. Martin, Troth, Marlatt, Dodd, Bain. After that, Bellegrave intersected busy Van Buren Boulevard. After hearing Earnest’s latest transmission, Bill Crowe covered the half mile from Troth to Dodd in less than a minute with Romo following behind and Reynard trailing a hundred feet back.

  Above in Baker-1, Paul Benoit could see what was unfolding beneath him. The yellow truck coming up Dodd and the three police units eastbound on Bellegrave were going to reach the intersection at the same time. Better advise those units on Bellegrave they are approaching that vehicle at this time, he radioed urgently.

  Had there not been an open dirt lot on the corner of Dodd, Bill Crowe probably would have crashed his CHP unit into the yellow truck without ever seeing it as it blew the stop sign onto Bellegrave. As it was, Crowe was fifty feet short of the intersection when he looked across the field and caught sight of the yellow truck speeding up Dodd with Russell Harven standing in the bed firing. Crowe slammed on the brakes and went into a skid.