Norco Shootout: The 1980 Bank Robbery That Changed Policing

The Norco shootout was a bank robbery on May 9, 1980, in Norco, California, that turned into one of the most violent gun battles in American law enforcement history. Five heavily armed men hit a Security Pacific Bank branch, triggered a four-minute firefight with sheriff’s deputies, then fled in a rolling pursuit that stretched roughly 25 miles into the San Bernardino Mountains. By the time it ended, one deputy and two of the robbers were dead, nearly 20 people were wounded, and 33 police vehicles plus a helicopter had been shot up. The incident is widely credited with changing how American patrol officers are armed.

Who the Robbers Were

The five men were George Wayne Smith, brothers Christopher and Russell Harven, and brothers Billy and Manny Delgado. Smith and Christopher Harven worked as park maintenance employees and dealt marijuana on the side. None of the five had significant criminal records.¹

Their motive was not ordinary greed. According to accounts drawn from court records and interviews, the group believed the United States was on the verge of a biblical-scale catastrophe and that only the well-armed and well-prepared would survive. Smith, who had been involved in the 1970s evangelical “Jesus movement,” led the planning.²

The plan was flawed from the start. Smith chose a branch where he was a customer, several miles from the nearest freeway, which made a quick escape nearly impossible. The group planted a diversionary bomb on the opposite side of town to pull police away from the bank, but a passing civilian found the device and put it out before it did anything.²

What they did get right was firepower. The robbers carried semi-automatic rifles, including a Colt AR-15 and Heckler & Koch HK93 and HK91s, along with shotguns, handguns, large-capacity magazines, and homemade explosives. They wore Army fatigues and walked out of the bank with about $20,000 in cash.³⁴

The Firefight at the Bank

Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Glyn Bolasky was patrolling nearby when a silent alarm came over the radio. He approached the side entrance of the bank hoping to stay unseen, but a lookout spotted him within 28 seconds of the dispatch call.⁵ As the robbers exited the bank, they opened fire with rifles and a shotgun.

Bolasky took cover behind his patrol car and returned fire with his department-issued shotgun and revolver. His cruiser was struck by 46 bullets; its windows blew out and three tires were destroyed.⁶ Even so, Bolasky killed Billy Delgado, the getaway driver, during the exchange. Bolasky was shot himself.⁵

Deputy Andy Delgado (no relation to the robber brothers) also responded and engaged the four remaining suspects from about 50 yards with his shotgun, wounding three of them. The hits were not enough to stop the gunfire. The entire battle at the bank lasted four minutes and two seconds.⁶

The Rolling Pursuit

With Billy Delgado dead and their van shot up, the four survivors fled. The van crashed a short distance away, and the suspects commandeered a passing work truck, firing at police the whole way. Over a chase of 25 miles or more, they shot at 33 patrol vehicles and a police helicopter, disabling many of them, and threw homemade explosives at officers and civilians along the route.⁷ The pursuit crossed from Riverside County into San Bernardino County and climbed toward the Lytle Creek area in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Near Stockton Flat Campground, the suspects stopped, set up a hasty ambush, and waited. Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy James Evans, a 39-year-old Vietnam veteran and father of six, was in the lead car. As he rounded a corner, the suspects opened fire with rifles and killed him. Radios in Riverside and San Bernardino counties were not interoperable, so no warning about the ambush had reached him.⁸⁵

The Deputy With an M-16

What turned the fight was a weapon that officially did not belong in a patrol car. San Bernardino County Deputy D.J. McCarty, 26 and barely a year on the job, had heard a radio request for heavier firepower and pulled a military Colt M-16 from the trunk of a sergeant’s vehicle at the Fontana substation. The rifle had been seized from a drug dealer; the Army had declined to take it back, so it sat in the department as the only semi-automatic rifle in the entire agency’s inventory. McCarty had no formal training on it.⁹

When the M-16 jammed, McCarty beat it against a rock to seat the magazine and cycle the action.¹⁰ Once it worked, the rifle’s firepower forced the suspects to break off the ambush and run into the hills on foot. One deputy later said: “When the suspects heard that rifle, they realized their firepower was now being matched. There would have been a lot more dead cops on that road if not for that weapon.”¹¹ McCarty was wounded and airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center.¹²

How It Ended

A manhunt extended into May 10 across the rugged terrain of Lytle Creek Canyon. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s SWAT members John View and Glenn Bartholomew tracked Manny Delgado to a domed ridgeline and found him dead. Pathologist Dr. Irving Root determined that he had died from a gunshot to the heart fired from his own .38 revolver. Both Delgado brothers had reportedly vowed never to be taken alive.¹³

George Smith, Christopher Harven, and Russell Harven surrendered and were taken into custody.

The Toll

Deputy James Evans and two robbers, Billy and Manny Delgado, were dead. Eight law enforcement officers were wounded, and nearly 20 people in total were injured.² Thirty-three patrol vehicles and a police helicopter had been damaged or destroyed.¹⁴ The suspects had fired more than 1,000 rounds.⁷

Convictions and Sentences

Smith and the Harven brothers were tried in Superior Court in Vista, California, in what was described at the time as one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in American history.² In July 1982, all three were convicted of first-degree murder and 44 other charges. The penalty-phase jury deadlocked between death and life without parole, and the judge excused the panel.¹⁵ All three were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹⁶ As of 2021, George Smith was still incarcerated at a correctional facility in Corcoran, California.¹⁷

How It Changed Policing

The responding officers had been armed with .38 revolvers and 12-gauge shotguns while the robbers used semi-automatic rifles effective well past 60 yards. Riverside County Sheriff Ben Clark put it bluntly: “The bad guys simply had the better weapons.”¹¹

The incident is widely treated as the birthplace of the modern patrol rifle concept, the idea that a high-powered rifle belongs in an everyday patrol officer’s equipment rather than locked in a SWAT armory.³ Local agencies moved almost immediately:

Riverside County authorized 40 Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifles for deputies, standardized 15-round semi-automatic pistols in place of its Smith & Wesson.38 revolvers, formed eight SWAT teams, and acquired a dozen Ruger Marksman.308 rifles.⁷
San Bernardino County acquired three dozen automatic weapons and put Ruger Mini-14 rifles in patrol cars. Sheriff Frank Bland requested $5,500 for an M-60 machine gun to mount on a helicopter.⁷
Police helicopters, previously used for surveillance, were converted into armed platforms, with new coordinated training between SWAT and air units.¹⁸
The Riverside Sheriff’s Department overhauled its radios to improve communications between agencies in the field.¹⁸

The California Highway Patrol adopted patrol rifles in 1989.³ The trend went national after the 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery, in which two rifle-armed suspects in heavy body armor pinned down LAPD officers for 44 minutes until SWAT arrived.¹⁹ The same year, the Department of Defense established the 1033 Program to transfer surplus military equipment, including M-16 rifles, to local law enforcement.

The event has since been pulled into the broader argument over police militarization. Supporters of arming patrol officers with rifles cite Norco and North Hollywood as evidence that officers need to match what criminals can bring. Critics argue the resulting proliferation of military-grade gear carries its own costs, and the robbery has been invoked in discussions of the 1033 Program and of the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, protests, where armored vehicles and military-style weapons on American streets drew national scrutiny.¹⁸ Inland Empire officials have pointed to Norco’s lessons as the foundation for the response to the December 2, 2015, San Bernardino terrorist attack, where officers deployed BearCat armored vehicles and semi-automatic weapons.¹¹

What Happened to the Officers

The physical wounds were only part of the damage. The prevailing attitude in law enforcement at the time was that if you did not take a bullet, you did not take time off, and many of the surviving deputies received little or no psychological support.²

Glyn Bolasky left the Riverside Sheriff’s Office within a year and joined the Riverside Police Department. He was dismissed from that job on January 12, 1981, with the department calling him a “vicarious liability” because of mental fatigue tied to the shootout. Andy Delgado endured what was described as a two-year run of confrontations with supervisors and other officers. By the first anniversary of the robbery he was carrying two handguns on duty, saying that if the department would not back him up, he would handle things himself. He was medically discharged in February 1982 for post-traumatic stress disorder.¹¹

In 2000, twenty years after the robbery, Bolasky and Andy Delgado were awarded the Medal of Courage. Deputy Evans was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.¹¹⁴

1
The Big Thrill. Up Close: Peter Houlahan
2
NPR. Norco ’80 Is a Gripping Account of One of America’s Most Notorious Bank Heists
3
Police1. How the Norco Bank Robbery Gave Rise to Patrol Rifle Programs
4
Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. Deputy James Bernard Evans
5
Police1. Lessons From the 1980 Norco Bank Robbery
6
Press-Enterprise. Norco ’80 Part 1: Before the Bank Robbery and 4-Minute Gun Battle
7
Salon. This 1980 Bank Robbery Changed How American Police Are Armed
8
Officer Down Memorial Page. Deputy Sheriff James B. Evans
9
Daily News. Norco ’80 Part 11: Gunmen Race Through Mountains
10
Daily Bulletin. Norco ’80 Part 12: Tragedy Strikes When Gunmen Kill a Deputy
11
Daily News. Norco ’80 Finale: Careers Ruined, Police Tactics Changed
12
SGV Tribune. How Norco ’80 Author Peter Houlahan Tracked Down the True Story
13
Daily News. Norco ’80 Part 13: Heavily Armed Officers Descend on Gunmen
14
Counterpoint Press. Norco ’80
15
UPI. Jury Deadlocked on Sentences for Bank Robbers
16
New York Post. The Brazen Robbery That Spurred Police to Load Up on Guns
17
LAist. Norco ’80 Podcast: Chapter 7 – George Smith
18
Vice. How a 1980 Bank Robbery Sparked the Militarization of America’s Police
19
Police Magazine. How the North Hollywood Shootout Changed Patrol Arsenals