Norco '80

by Peter Houlahan

  The first volley strafed the entire right side of Crowe’s patrol car, rounds going through the front fender and both side doors, shattering the rear passenger-side window, and blowing out the two tires on that side. Crowe stood on the brake as his skidding unit continued to close in on the yellow truck now making the right off Dodd onto Bellegrave directly in front of him. By the time his vehicle came to a stop in the middle of the intersection, he was only twenty feet behind the tailgate of the truck. He was so close, in fact, that Russell Harven had to point the “Shorty” AR at a downward angle in order to shoot Bill Crowe through the windshield of his patrol car.

  The first bullet from Harven went through the right side and out the rear window, shattering it. The second hit dead center, tore the rearview mirror in half, and fragmented, sending shards of copper into Crowe’s arm and leg, lodging others under his scalp and in his sternum. Another pierced a hole through the soft pinna tissue of his ear. Crowe was ducking for cover when the last bullet came through the driver’s side of the windshield, entered his body through his left bicep, tunneled through the flesh of his upper arm, and exited his back just above the shoulder blade. The truck sped away, leaving Bill Crowe stunned and bleeding in the front seat of his CHP unit.

  Rudy Romo had also jammed on the brakes in a hail of gunfire at the same time Crowe did. He ducked below the line of his dashboard the instant before a bullet came through the windshield and blew the headrest clean off the driver’s seat above him. Like Parkes and Brown before him, Rudy Romo had come within inches of taking a direct head shot from an assault rifle.

  While Russ and George were keeping their weapons firmly trained on the police cars converging on them from Bellegrave, Manny Delgado was firing wildly at anything that caught his eye. Immediately after making the turn onto Bellegrave, he sprayed gunfire into two civilian vehicles headed the opposite direction, hitting both. Passing a third car pulled over on the far side of the road, Delgado pivoted and sent two rounds through the back window, nearly hitting the two passengers taking cover inside. When Russ spotted three young boys riding their bikes on the dirt shoulder of the road, he screamed at them to get back. But as the truck roared by, Manny turned his AR on the group and fired at close range. One of the children fell off his bike with a scream, a bullet from the .223 having clipped the end of a finger as he gripped the handlebars of his Stingray.

  With the first two police cars now shot up and sideways in the road, George and Russ watched as a third steadily closed in on them from behind. While George reloaded, Russ leveled the “Shorty” AR and fired three rounds directly through the windshield. The car just kept coming. When it got within twenty feet of them, Russ noticed something very strange: There was no one driving the car.

  But there was. Inside the ghost ship RSO unit, the youngest deputy on the force, A. J. Reynard, was lying across the front seat of Kurt Franklin’s 511 car, pinning the accelerator to the floor, with blood running down his arm and absolutely no idea that he was headed straight into the back end of a truck with two men firing assault rifles at him.

  Reynard never saw the yellow truck that day. Approaching Dodd, he came up fast on Crowe and Romo, planning to join the two men in forming a roadblock at the intersection. As he slowed and pulled alongside Romo, he glanced over in time to see Romo duck out of sight. An instant later, a bullet came through the bottom right corner of Reynard’s windshield followed by a second round that blew out his rear passenger-side window. Thinking the gunfire must be coming from the field directly to the right of him, A. J. ducked down across his seat and stomped on the accelerator to get clear of the line of fire. He did not know that the men shooting at him were actually in the back of a truck coming up Dodd. With his head ducked down below the dashboard, he never saw the suspect vehicle turn onto Bellegrave directly in front of him.

  When Russ Harven opened up on him, Reynard heard three rounds smash through his windshield and then it felt as though someone grabbed ahold of his arm and jerked it off the steering wheel. When he looked, there was a large hole on the inside of his left elbow and blood was rushing out onto the radio, dashboard, and paperwork beside him on the seat. Assuming he was still headed away from the source of the gunfire, Reynard punched the accelerator to the floor. He reached up with his bloody arm and grabbed the steering wheel again, not realizing he was now hanging off the rear bumper of the yellow truck just feet away from the business end of a “Shorty” AR.

  Five hundred feet overhead in Baker-1, a dumbfounded Paul Benoit radioed an urgent message over the RSO frequency. Riverside, you better tell that unit to back off.

  In all, Reynard traveled over a quarter mile down Bellegrave at full acceleration without looking up once. With Russ Harven just about to unload on Reynard at arm’s length, Chris Harven spotted a two-car police roadblock just ahead and turned sharply right onto Bain Street. Reynard kept going.

  Baker-1, the [suspect] has just turned southbound off of Bellegrave, the SO unit just passed him, Benoit radioed.

  When A. J. Reynard finally did peek up over the dashboard, he was headed straight at two RSO units blocking the road in front of him. He moved his foot over to the brake and slammed it down, pitching the front end of the 511 car forward into a hard slide. The Impala, with its windows blown out, its body riddled with bullet holes, and front seat soaked in blood, came skidding to a stop in front of one of the deputies manning the roadblock. It was Kurt Franklin.

  The other deputy, Bill Eldrich, helped Reynard out of the Impala and looked at his elbow. “Let’s just take him to Riverside General in one of our units,” Eldrich said.

  The amped-up Reynard was having none of it. “Fuck that,” he said, pulling away from Eldrich. He drew his .38 and gripped it in his left hand. “Look, I can still hold a gun,” he said to Franklin, raising the weapon in the air to demonstrate.

  “Uh-huh,” Franklin said, looking past Reynard at the demolished vehicle sideways in the road. “That’s not my 511 car, is it?” he asked.

  DOUG EARNEST HAD BEEN MAKING UP GROUND ON THE YELLOW TRUCK ON Dodd when he approached the intersection at Bellegrave. When he saw the CHP unit racing toward the intersection, he knew it was Crowe, but it was too late to warn him off. With the first crack of gunfire, Crowe’s unit went into a full skid. I’m hit! Earnest heard Crowe cry out over the CHP radio frequency. There was more gunfire and Crowe’s unit seemed to disintegrate before Earnest’s eyes, exploding from the inside out, glass and metal flying in all directions.

  Earnest was out of his own vehicle almost before Crowe’s had come to a sliding stop just short of Dodd. He sprinted to his fellow patrolman’s unit and jerked open the passenger-side door, using it for cover as rounds continued to hit the asphalt around them and snap overhead. Crowe was sitting up, but leaning to the passenger side of the vehicle, his arms limp at his sides, eyes glassy and fixed, staring straight ahead. There was blood coming down his face, in his hair, on his uniform and still-holstered gun. Earnest called his name. Crowe did not respond. He’s dead, Earnest thought, and it’s my fault. I’m the one who guided him straight into the truck and they killed him.

  Rudy Romo reached Crowe’s patrol car and pulled open the driver’s door. “Shit,” he said when he saw the CHP officer sitting unresponsive in the seat. But at least the guy was breathing. “He’s going into shock,” Romo told Earnest. Earnest ran back to his own unit, retrieved a first aid kit, and came around to the driver’s door. He called out sharply to Crowe. This time Crowe responded and began to sit up in the seat, still pale and waxy but at least somewhat coherent.

  Dave Madden emerged out of Dodd Street and pulled beside Crowe’s disabled unit. Madden could hear rounds passing overhead with a high-pitched crack! “Do you need help?” Madden called out to Earnest.

  Earnest knew Mad Dog and was relieved to see him there, but no one was going to take care of Bill Crowe but Doug Earnest. “No. Go get those bastards,” Earnest called back to him. “I’ll take care of my own man.”

  Of all
the wounds, the arm concerned Earnest the most. As he began wrapping the wound, a young photo journalist for the Riverside Press-Enterprise named Jim Edwards appeared at the passenger door and quickly snapped the photo of Earnest bandaging Crowe that would appear on the front pages of newspapers across the country the next day. Edwards and writer James Richardson had been alerted to events while monitoring the police scanner in the newsroom. Jumping in separate cars, they each raced toward the action. Edwards intercepted it perfectly, but Earnest was not happy to see him, barking at Edwards to get the fuck out of there. Edwards got his photo and leapt back into his car, speeding off to catch up with the pursuit.

  Rolf Parkes and Fred Chisholm came out onto Bellegrave from Marlatt and raced eastbound to Dodd. What they found there shocked them. A CHP unit was cockeyed in the road, utterly destroyed, a seriously wounded patrolman being worked on inside. Beside it, Rudy Romo’s unit had a hole through the windshield and the back window was completely blown out. Parked a dozen feet away was Doug Earnest’s patrol car, its hood and sides punched through with bullet holes. Facing the opposite direction were three civilian cars shot up and disabled, their occupants standing in the road, either stunned or hysterical.

  Riverside, 3-Edward-13, Parkes called into the mic, his voice straining above the sirens and chaos around him. Roll an ambulance to Bellegrave and Dodd. Officer shot!

  Copy. Bellegrave and Dodd. Officer shot, Keeter acknowledged flatly. Ambulance en route. We’ll also roll rescue. That was six men down.

  Moments later, Kurt Franklin was on the radio. 2-Edward-73. I am transporting Officer Reynard, he’s taken a round in the arm, to the hospital.

  Now Keeter was confused. 10-4. Is this the officer from Bellegrave and Dodd?

  No, he’s a CHP officer, Dave Madden corrected.

  At RSO dispatch, Keeter, Wiza, and Markum were too overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the phone calls and transmissions to say anything to each other, but they were all thinking the same thing: Reynard was number seven.

  There remained confusion in the field over the status of hostages. Do we have hostages on this vehicle that’s shootin’ everybody? a lieutenant inquired. That’s unknown, Keeter answered.

  People were everywhere on Bellegrave now, jumping out of their cars or streaming from houses onto front lawns, all feverishly pointing Parkes and Chisholm in the direction that the truck had fled. Trying to decipher the reports coming from Baker-1, the two deputies headed toward the major intersection of Bellegrave and Van Buren Boulevard, passing the shot-up 511 car on the way. Passing the ruins of seven vehicles within a single block, Rolf Parkes decided on a name for the place. He called it “The Graveyard of Cars.”

  ON BAIN STREET, A HALF BLOCK SOUTH OF BELLEGRAVE, DOROTHY CRAIG WAS in her kitchen when she heard the deafening sound of the helicopter flying low over her house. Running out to her front yard, she saw a yellow utility truck cruising by at an almost leisurely pace. There was one man sitting out of the passenger window and two more seated in the bed of the truck. All three were aiming what appeared to be assault rifles straight up into the air. Then she realized they were firing up at the helicopter.

  When they reached the end of the block, Chris Harven made the right turn onto 50th and accelerated. Passing their own house again, Harven did not even bother to slow down. There was no point. They had not been able to drive off Baker-1, the sound of the blades still chopping the air right above them. They would never see the Mira Loma house again.

  Unharmed and only vaguely aware they might have been fired upon, Baker-1 continued tracking at low altitude, radioing out the location. Chris Harven pushed the truck to forty-five miles an hour on 50th Street back toward Etiwanda. As far as Chris was concerned, Mira Loma was a lost cause. They just needed to get the fuck out of there as fast as possible. There was another thing they needed to do: get a different vehicle. Every cop in the Inland Empire must be looking for a bright yellow pickup at this point and it wasn’t exactly hard to spot. Taking the right turn northbound onto Etiwanda at high speed, Harven saw an opportunity to swap out their ride.

  At the southeast corner of Etiwanda and Bellegrave was a small mom-and-pop convenience store called the Can Do Market. As usual, it was busy on a Friday with at least a dozen cars parked in the small lot outside. A railroad crew of about fifteen men stood around a picnic table, finishing off their workweek with a few beers in the shade of a cottonwood. A white panel van waited its turn at one of the two gas pumps in front. Chris cut sharply into the market parking area, scattering the terrified customers.

  From Baker-1, Paul Benoit could see the chaotic scene unfolding below him and tried to relay the information as best he could. Baker-1, suspects are bailing out of the vehicle, it appears it’s going to be at Etiwanda and Bellegrave. There are a couple of people still in the vehicle. Vehicle is still moving. There is a small red brick building. A couple of the suspects apparently rushed inside. I don’t know if they are suspects or people running from this vehicle.

  Harven brought the yellow truck to a stop beside the white van waiting to get gas, grabbed the Long Colt, and jumped out of the truck while Manny Delgado leapt from the passenger side waving the Heckler. Behind the wheel of his 1974 GMC van, a Vietnam veteran named Robert LeMay was about to pull forward to an open pump when Chris Harven appeared at the driver’s window aiming the Long Colt at his head. “You better get the fuck out of there,” Harven yelled at him. LeMay looked down the barrel of the gun and then looked at Harven. He then did what he thought would be wise considering the circumstances: He drove away.

  With their intended target now gone and more than a dozen burly railroad workers staring at them, there was nothing left to do but pile back into the yellow truck and get the hell out of the Can Do Market. Manny Delgado moved back to the passenger side while leveling the Heckler at the railroad workers, sending them diving to the dirt.

  Vehicle at this time is resuming its northbound traffic on Etiwanda, Baker-1 updated. Northbound again.

  The moment the yellow truck crossed Bellegrave, every cop in the Inland Empire knew exactly where it was headed. These bank robbers were doing what every bank robber in Southern California does: They were headed for the freeway. Only these bank robbers had headed there way too late.

  Vehicle is still northbound, approaching Highway 60, Paul Benoit announced from Baker-1.

  For the first time that day, dispatcher Gary Keeter sounded almost defeated as he relayed the information. Northbound, coming to Highway 60, he said wearily. The men who had just robbed a bank and shot seven cops and five civilians in his county were not only leaving Mira Loma, they were escaping Riverside County entirely. For the last twenty-one minutes, Keeter had been dealing with a complete disaster. Now he would have to inform the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office that the disaster was most likely headed straight into their county.

  8

  INTERSTATE

  May 9, 1980. San Bernardino County, California.

  RACING EASTBOUND ON BELLEGRAVE IN AN UNMARKED BROWN FORD CROWN Victoria with its dash-mounted emergency light whirling away was Riverside sheriff’s detective Joe Szeles. Don’t forget to put on your rain jackets, he heard someone radio the responding units, referring to the bulletproof vests every RSO officer in the field carried in their vehicle. Szeles pulled over and quickly threw on the vest before speeding off again, hoping to intercept the suspect vehicle at Etiwanda.

  As Szeles approached the intersection at high speed, the yellow truck suddenly bolted out of the Can Do Market and crossed Bellegrave directly in front of him. The detective slowed sharply and jerked the wheel to the left, falling in just thirty feet behind the tailgate of the truck. Within seconds, a man in a ski mask standing in the back peeled off three rounds at Szeles. The gunman then coolly ejected the spent magazine, replaced it with a fresh one, and resumed firing.

  Edward-214, the veteran detective radioed in his calm, clear voice. I am behind the vehicle northbound. They are hooded subjects. Just put another
clip in the weapon and fired at this officer.

  The ease with which the gunman handled the rifle left an impression on Szeles. “The suspect was not fumbling with the clip,” he wrote afterward in his incident report, “but precisely placed it in the weapon as if he knew how to handle the weapon.”

  Dropping back one hundred feet and zigzagging back and forth in an evasive maneuver, Szeles was acutely aware that he was alone in the pursuit. “There were no other black and white units or other plain units in the area at that time,” his incident report would read. Of the dozens of police units that had engaged the suspects so far, those who had not been wounded or had their vehicles shot out from under them were now being diverted to the Can Do Market to address the possibility of a hostage situation inside.

  Szeles knew his suspects were headed for the Pomona Freeway, the local name for Highway 60, but from there . . . where? If they went east on the Pomona, they would be headed back into Riverside and nothing but cops all the way to Palm Springs. Westbound and they would quickly find themselves in Los Angeles County. L.A. had shitloads of cops and heavily armed SWAT teams strategically placed throughout the county. In L.A., they shot suspects from helicopters. If those guys want to go into L.A. County, be my fucking guest, thought Szeles.

  Szeles had a suspicion where they might be headed: Interstate 15 North. Three lanes in each direction, the newly extended I-15 went straight through San Bernardino County on a stretch known as the Devore Freeway before bisecting the San Gabriel Mountains through the Cajon Pass. After that, it was a whole lot of nothing until Las Vegas. But nobody was stupid enough to try to outrun the cops across two hundred miles of the wide-open Mojave Desert. If these guys went north on I-15, they were headed for San Bernardino National Forest, 1,200 square miles of winding mountain roads, deep canyons, and rugged wilderness. The nearest access to the San Gabriels was sixteen miles away at the Sierra Avenue off-ramp and then straight up Lytle Creek Canyon Road. In Southern California, bank robbers headed for the freeway. But there was another place bank robbers went, especially with the sheriff on their tail: They headed for the hills.