On May 9th, 1980, five heavily armed men stormed the Norco branch of the Security Pacific Bank, demanding 20,000 dollars in cash. What happened next became a legendary gunfight that poured out of the bank and into the streets of a California city. It’s a shootout that’s long fascinated me, one where everything went wrong for both sides, and ended as violently as it started.
The Perpetrators
George Smith and Christopher Harven were small-time pot dealers and park employees who believed the United States was coming to an end. They believed a catastrophic event was coming and America would be plunged into a new dark age, and they needed to be well prepared to survive the common apocalypse.
Unlike most preppers, they didn’t slowly build a cache of survival supplies and learn survival skills; they decided the best way to prepare was to rob a bank and use the cash to stockpile supplies. They recruited Chris’ brother Russell and brothers Billy and Manny Delgado.
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Their grand plan was to rob the Security Pacific bank, the very bank George Smith was a customer of. The greater Los Angeles area was the bank robbery capital of the country. The density of banks paired with an abundance of freeways made it an attractive area for the enterprising bank robbers.
George Smith wasn’t the brightest bulb, and the Security Pacific Bank was several miles from any freeway. That didn’t matter; they had a grand plan. They’d use multiple getaway vehicles full of camping gear, rifles, and ammo. Their plan was to blow up a gas main across town to create a diversion and rob the bank blind while emergency services responded. They’d escape into the forest, camp out, and wait for the heat to die down.
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They were heavily armed with shotguns, HK G3 and 93 rifles, AR-15s, and a katana. Yes, a katana because if you studied the blade, you might as well bring it.
The Robbery
Their grand plan of the bomb exploding, creating a diversion, didn’t happen. They might have lit the fuse, but the bomb failed to detonate. You’d assume when the first part of the plan fails, you call the rest off. That wasn’t the case. I imagine George Smith looked at his fellow bank robbers and said, “Let’s ball.”
They stormed the bank. As they ran headfirst into what they believed would be soon-to-be ill-gotten gains, an employee at a bank across the street called the police. Police response can vary, but let’s be generous and say it would take five minutes to respond. All of my bank robbery experience comes from Heat, so you only need 90 seconds, right?
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They didn’t get 90 seconds. Sheriff Deputy Glynn Bolasky was sitting at a red light across from the bank when the call came in. He was on them like white on rice. The getaway driver radioed his compatriots, and they came out shooting.
Bolasky slammed into reverse, escaped the hail of gunfire, and immediately snagged his twelve-gauge shotgun and started fighting back. Bolasky engaged the men, and as they attempted to speed away, a single pellet from Bolasky’s buckshot struck Billy Delgado behind his ear, killing him.
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The getaway van slammed into a telephone pole. The four remaining clowns climbed out of the clown car and continued to engage balls of steel Bolasky. They fired over two hundred rounds, striking him five times. Bolasky survived and was quickly evacuated by responding Deputies Charles Hille and Andy Delgado.
Deputy Delgado engaged the men, while Hille evacuated Bolasky to a nearby hospital. The robbers found a new option in a truck stopped at an intersection. They stole it and quickly fled.
The Pursuit
The four surviving clowns and their new clown car fled, pursued by police. The gunfight didn’t end. The men in the vehicle fired at the police as they fled, and deployed homemade explosives. The pursuit grew, a helicopter joined, and the chase was on.
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This became a multi-agency chase. To give you a scope of how big the chase was, the bank robbers damaged 33 vehicles and damaged a helicopter enough to force it to land. Their destruction was enough to slow the chase down to give the robbers a little breathing room.
They made it to the San Bernardino National Forest, and promptly ran into a dead end. With little other option, they set an ambush for the responding deputies. Deputy James Evans, a former Vietnam-era Green Beret, was the first to arrive, and he immediately engaged. Tragically, the men overwhelmed him, and he was killed in action.
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Deputy Evans, under oppressive suppressing fire, struck Chris Harvin in the back, but not fatally.
More and more officers arrived and engaged, but found their .38 Special revolvers to be poorly suited to the task. San Bernardino Deputy D.J. McCarty arrived with an M16 and quickly turned the tide. As he engaged the men with rifle fire, they fled into the woods.
The Pursuit Continues
The men escaped into the woods, and day turned to night. A 65-man SWAT team stormed the National Forest, and the manhunt was on. Chris and Russell Harven turned themselves in and were found to have been shot several times.
George Smith was captured and had also been shot several times in the gunfight the day prior. Bolasky had put lead in his left leg and groin.
Without these wounds, the three men would have kept fighting. They would later confirm their intentions were to fight to the death. Manny Delgado took their route, going out in a gunfight with the police after a helicopter spotted him.
With that, the chase was over.
The Aftermath
Deputy Evans was the only fatality suffered by the police forces engaged in the chase. Eight police officers had been wounded, but survived.
The three living bank robbers were convicted of 46 felonies and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The M-16 rifle used by D.J. McCarthy was credited as the weapon that turned the tide. With one deputy saying, “There would have been a lot more dead cops on the road if not for that weapon.”
In response, local police departments began fielding intermediate-caliber rifles, such as the Mini-14, the M-16, and the AR-15. It was one of the big incidents that began to push for police patrol rifles.
The Norco bank robbery, pursuit, and ambush was one of America’s most violent shootouts and one law enforcement would be wise to learn from.
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