THE BATH MASSACRE

5/18/1927 - Hitting his enemies where they will feel it the worst, 59-year-old madman, Andrew Philip Kehoe, sets off explosives in Michigan township of Bath, creating a mass murder of 45 individuals (including the lunatic's own death), and as 38 are elementary grade children, initiating the still worst school massacre in United States criminal history.

Schoolhouse Ruins

Monster-to-be (his neighbors will one day call him "the world's worst demon"), Andrew Philip Kehoe, is born into the devoutly Catholic family of Irish-American farmer Philip Kehoe (the oldest son of one of the many families that flee to America following The Great Famine of 1847 that takes place in Ireland) and Mary McGovern Kehoe, in Tecumseh, Michigan on Thursday, February 1, 1872.  The first boy Philip Kehoe sires after his first two wives have six daughters (two will become Catholic nuns, and a third, becomes a practicing attorney at a time when there are only about two hundred in the entire nation) by the man.  The long sought "male heir" to the family, the boy grows up thinking himself special and burdened by the high expectations of his demanding parents.  Looking to make his mark on the world, Andrew Kehoe grows up fascinated by electricity, possesses exceptional mechanical skills, and is first student in his high school's physics class, while also being heavily involved in the activities of the local American Farmers' Club. This phase of Kehoe's life comes to an end when his mother dies when Andrew is 18-years-old and in 1898, his 65-year-old father remarries a widow named, Frances Murphy Wilder, who is 25-years Philip Keyhoe's junior.  Not liking Frances, Andrew soon leaves home.

Keyhoe

Little is known for sure about the next eight year's of Andrew Kehoe's life.  in 1900, he is in Michigan working as a dairyman.  He matriculates at Michigan State Agricultural College (now Michigan State University at Lansing) and majors in electrical engineering.(while also meeting his future wife, Ellen "Nellie" Price, at the school).  Using his "electrical" talents, he is in Iowa working as a lineman before moving to Missouri where he falls in an accident which seems to turn on a switch that will eventually lead to the man's descent into madness ... an accident which puts him in a coma and leaves him semi-conscious for almost two months.  By 1910, he is back in Michigan, working as a farm laborer while living with his father, step mother, new half-sister, Irene, and Irene's pet cat.  Scratched petting the animal, Andrew eliminates the creation.  And it will be wondered if he also doesn't play a role in the removal of his step-mother, Francis Murphy Wilder Kehoe, who in the presence of Andrew, dies on September 17, 1911 while making Sunday supper when her new gasoline stove explodes, covering her in burning oil.  Afire, Andrew makes the conflagration worse by throwing a bucket of water on Francis that only spreads the flames.  Eight months after the accident, 40-year-old Andrew marries into a wealthy Irish-Catholic emigrant family from nearby Lansing, taking 37-year-old spinster Price as his bride.  After the death of Nellie's uncle, the couple purchase an 80-acre farm in the township of Bath, a $12,000 property for which they make a down payment of $6,000, and take out a mortgage for the additional price of the land.

Kehoe And Wife

At first, Andrew Kehoe makes a favorable impression on his new neighbors and is considered to be a highly intelligent man willing to lend a hand to any villager needing one, while asking nothing in return.  A flashy dresser, while his neighbors do their farm work in dirty coveralls and work boots, Kehoe rides about his farm tractor wearing a business suit, vest, and highly polished dress shoes, changing his shirt anytime he notices a smudge or sweat stain.  After use, all his tools immediately go back where they came from after use, and his barn, is cleaner than most of his neighbor's home.  With his reputation for thrift and exactness established in the community, Kehoe is elected to the Board of Directors for Bath in 1921 (he will step away from the position after seven months, becomes treasurer of the Bath Consolidated School board in 1924 and in 1925, for a short period of time, is appointed as the Bath Township Clerk.  After getting rid of a swarm of bees plaguing the new schoolhouse at no cost to the community, Andrew is made the unofficial handyman of the school, giving him unlimited access to the building and allowing him to set up a workspace in the structure's basement.  But there are also signs that Kehoe is dealing with a profound case of mental illness.

The New Bath Schoolhouse

Along with the positives his neighbors note in Kehoes' personality, they also notice that Andrew scorns those that don't meet his own exacting standards of conduct, he drops out of attending Catholic services when a $400 contribution is requested of him to help build a new church (throwing the local parish priest off his property), he kills a neighbor's little fox terrier for burying a bone on his property, and beats to death an overworked horse that has the audacity to stop working.  Money being the catalyst that unleashes his demons, Kehoe fights against the local tax that is levied for building the new schoolhouse, constantly finds himself in arguments with Emory Huyck. the superintendent of the Bath Consolidated School, and is personally embarrassed when his overbearing manner causes his party not to nominate him to continue on as town clerk, and he is roundly defeated running for justice of the peace the following year.  Rejected for office, his farm not making enough for his mortgage payments (the local bank sends a notice of foreclosure), school taxes taking money he already doesn't have, and his wife now amassing bills that can't be paid from hospitalizations and treatments at the St. Lawrence Hospital of Lansing for tuberculosis, something snaps inside Kehoe and he begins buying hundreds of pounds of pyrotol (eligible for a thousand pounds of pyrotol, roughly 3,000 sticks, the inexpensive explosive is made from leftover military gunpowder and is sold to farmers for removing tree stumps and helping with other agricultural projects) and dynamite, and begins playing with the materials in his basement workshop at the Bath schoolhouse..

Kehoe Farmhouse

Explosives Discovered After

Built to consolidate numerous rural schools under one roof, the Bath township schoolhouse, a handsome two-story white brick edifice crowned by an elegant cupola, is officially dedicated and opened for business on Tuesday, November 14, 1922.  Teaching grades 1 through 12, there are 236 students in various classes when the school opens.  Five years later, on Wednesday May 18, 1927, there are more than 250 students at the school for it's final examination day and closing for summer.  At 9:45 in the morning, as students are just beginning their day, a hidden alarm clock in the school's basement goes off, followed a split second later by a huge explosion the destroys the schoolhouse's north wing.  At approximately the same time, explosions rock the Kehoe farm and in moments, the farmhouse, sheep barn, north barn, toolshed, corn crib, and hog house are all ablaze, and driving his truck through the smoke of the death of his farm (sometime between picking her up on Monday from a two-week stay at her sister's house in Lansing and the Wednesday destruction of the Kehoe homestead, Andrew has murdered his wife, Nellie), Andrew is seen by neighbors headed into Bath.

Schoolhouse Destruction

Farmhouse Remains

Walls demolished, roof collapsed, ground floor rubble, the blown apart schoolhouse serves as a magnet, drawing most of the entire community to the structure, where the town immediately begins digging through brick plaster, broken wood, and twisted metal for the students and teachers of the school's youngest classes, while 17-year-old switchboard operator, Lenora Babcock makes the proper connections for Bath to call for help from nearby Lansing and other neighboring villages.  Exhumed from the ruined building, the dead, wrapped in blankets and tarpaulins are placed on a little grassy knoll that will come to be called "Hospital Hill," while others still living are taken to nearby homes for emergency treatment.  Detached limbs, broken bodies, blood, screaming, moans, crying, whimpering, and prayers, the scenes at the schoolhouse are something no one that is there will ever forget.  As men are trying to wedge a heavy pool under the collapsed roof, Kehoe drives up to the carnage he has created and the final act of destruction for the day takes place.  Truck converted into an infernal machine of explosives and farm junk mutated into lethal shrapnel, Kehoe calls his nemesis, Emory Huyck over to his truck, gets in one last argument with the man, and then detonates the bomb device in the back seat... more carnage, Kehoe and Huyck are torn apart (the remains of will land over 100 feet away) and killed instantly, standing nearby, Glenn Smith has his left leg blown off at the thigh and dies in an ambulance on the way to the hospital on his 33rd birthday, while his father-in-law dies instantly, his body coming to rest beneath a tree after being flung through air.  A block away, Mrs. Anna Perrone, holding her baby daughter Rosie  in her arms, has shrapnel from the blast take out one of her eyes and blow off part of her skull while leaving the baby untouched (Mrs. Perrone will survive the day's carnage, but only after coming through an hours-long surgery that removals 62 pieces of bone from her skull and a portion of her brain.  Francis Fritz, a father of three, whose oldest daughter is a victim of the initial explosion, is digging children out of the rubble when a steel bolt from Kehoe's truck strikes him in the chest and comes to rest in his shoulder ... he survives, but his left arm will be permanently disabled   A one-inch steel automobile screw hits 6th-grader Steve Staviski in the arm, and knocking him off his feet, causes a fall in which the youth breaks both his legs.  Two teenagers nearby, Thelma Medcoff and Perry Hart, are badly wounded in the legs, and 8-year-old Cleo Clayton, having coming through the first detonation unhurt, is hit in the midsection by a large bolt that rips his stomach open, splinters his spine, and causes him to perish seven hours later.

Huyck

The Remains Of Kehoe's Truck

Nearby Shredded Car

Lined Up Bodies

As with all events of this nature, luck and fate seem to guide death on who to take.  Fifteen members of senior class are missing from school having taken their final exams the week before.  Irene Dunham is kept home with a sore throat.  Because of their high grades, sophomores George Baird and Merrien Josephine are exempted from taking a final exam and skip school.  The fifth grade class Blanche Harte changes classrooms and floors with a sixth grade class taking finals.  This seat the person in it survives, but right beside it another student perishes ... and on and on it goes.  In all, the bombings kill 45 individuals, including Kehoe himself (in addition to wounding 58).  Of the deaths, four are men, three are women, and 38 are children ... the youngest victim is seven-year-old third grader Ralph A. Cushman, while the oldest is seventy-four-year-old retired farmer Nelson McFerren.  The total butcher's bill for Kehoe's madness is Nellie Kehoe (52), Arnold V. Bauerle (8, 3rd grade, survived by his parents, a brother, and a sister), Henry Bergan (14, 6th grade, survived by both parents and a brother), Hermann Bergan (11, 4th grade, survived by both parents and a brother), Emilie M. Bromundt (11, 5th grade, she is survived by both parents, two brothers and two sisters), Robert F. Bromundt (12, 5th grade, he is survived by both parents, two brothers and two sisters), Floyd E. Burnett (12, 6th grade, he leaves behind his father, five sisters, and three brothers), Russell J. Chapman (8, 4th grade, survived by both parents and a younger brother, Earl, who has an ankle smashed in the disaster), F. Robert Cochran (8, 4th grade, survived by both his parents who leave town to escape being so near the scene of their heartbreak), Ralph A. Cushman (7, 3rd grade), Earl E. Ewing (11, 6th grade, survived by both parents), Katherine O. Foote (10, 6th grade, had planned to become a teacher), Margory Fritz (9, 4th grade, survived by both parents who bought a farm in Bath so she could get a better education), Carlye W. Geisenhaver (9, 4th grade, he leaves behind his plans to go into farming, along with both parents, and two brothers, one injured in the head by the blast), George P. Hall Jr. (8, 3rd grade, survived by both parents and a brother), Willa M. Hall (11, 5th grade, dreamt of one day being a teacher, she is survived by both parents and a brother), Iola I. Hart (12, 6th grade, had planned to be a nurse or music teacher, she leaves behind both parents, a sister, and a brother), Percy E. Hart (11, 3rd grade, survived by both parents, a sister and a brother), Vivian O. Hart (8, 3rd grade, she leaves behind her dreams of being a singer someday and is survived by both parents, a sister, and a brother), Blanche E. Harte (30, fifth grade teacher, an educator for eleven years, she leaves behind her husband, both parents, a sister, and numerous other friends and family), Gailand L. Harte (12, 6th grade, leaves behind both parents and two brothers, one of whom escapes the building by jumping out of a second floor window and running two miles home), LaVere R. Harte (9, 4th grade, loved drawing and is survived by both parents and a little brother), Stanley H. Harte (12, 6th grade, leaves behind his mother, three brothers and four sisters), Francis O. Hoeppner (13, 6th grade, a born mechanic, he leaves behind both parents and a brother and a sister), Cecial L. Hunter (13, 6th grade, survived by parents, two sisters and a brother), Doris E. Johns (8, 3rd grade, home only a block away, she is found hanging upside down in the schoolhouse ruins by her own mother, along with her mother she leaves behind her father, two brothers and two sisters), Thelma I. MacDonald (8, 3rd grade, dreamt of becoming a teacher and is survived by both parents and two sisters), Clarence W. McFarren (13, 6th grade, leaves behind both parents, a brother and a sister), J. Emmerson Medcoff (8, 4th grade, survived by both parents), Emma A. Nickols (13, 6th grade, leaves behind both parents, a sister who has her face badly cut and almost loses a thumb in the explosion, another sister that suffers a fractured hip, another sister not involved in the tragedy, and two brothers), Richard D. Richardson (12, 6th grade, dreaming of being a father, he is killed instantly when a radiator falls on his head, he leaves behind both parents and two sisters), Elsie M. Robb (12, 6th grade, dreamt of a career in teaching, she leaves behind both parents, four sisters and a brother), Pauline M. Shirts (10, 5th grade, leaves behind her father), Hazel I. Weatherby (21, teacher, when found in the wreckage, she is cradling a child in each of her arms), Elizabeth J. Witchell (10, 5th grade, is survived by both parents), Lucile J. Witchell (9, 5th grade, a straight A student, she is survived by both of her parents), Harold L. Woodman (8, 3rd grade, he leaves behind his mother and father, a brother and a sister), George O. Zimmerman (10, 3rd grade, is survived by both parents and a sister who misses school with a cold), Lloyd Zimmerman (12, 5th grade, he leaves behind his parents and a sister), G. Cleo Claton (8, 2nd grade, survived by his two grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Gibbs), Emory E. Huyck (33, school superintendent), Andrew Kehoe (55, mass murderer), Nelson McFarren (74, retired Bath farmer), Glen O. Smith (33, Bath postmaster, he is survived by his wife, two brothers, and two sisters), Beatrice P. Gibbs (10, 4th grade, survived by both parents and a little brother, discovered in ten feet of debris, she perishes after three months of operations and suffering following surgery to remove a splinter from her hip).  A horrific tragedy for those taken and those that survive to live another day, and it could have been even worse ... digging through the rubble for survivors, rescuers discover 300 sticks of unexploded pyrotol, 10 burlap sacks of gunpowder, and 204 ticks of Hercules dynamite, over five hundred more pounds of explosives connected to wires and another alarm clock meant to take out the other wing of the schoolhouse and kill everyone in the building.

Ruins

McFarren

Ruins

Cushman

A magnet for first responders and looky-loos alike (even the governor of Michigan will show up, rolls up his sleeves, and begins digging in the rubble for victims and survivors), thousands flood into Bath, at one point creating a traffic jam two miles long on the road into town (Sunday sightseers to the crime scene will be estimated to be a host of 85,000 individuals), and not far behind are reporters of all shapes, sizes and importance ... the Associated Press sets up a makeshift office in a woodshed behind the local telephone office, photographers from the Chicago Herald and Examiner charter a plane to carry them to the scene of the disaster, and Pathe cameraman arrives to film rescue efforts and has his film shown in Chicago and New York theaters the next day.  Equally quick, the funerals for the fallen begin on Thursday with the burial of 8-year-old Thelma MacDonald in the town of Springport and are completed by Sunday (some featuring multiple victims, there will be seventeen funeral services on Saturday).  A story of state, national, and global interest, the Bath tragedy headlines fade from view, just two days after the explosions were set off and the funerals for its victims begin (with no mourners present, the pieces of Kehoe that can be found are buried in a simple pine box at an unmarked spot at the town of St. Johns' Mount Rest Cemetery, replaced by a bigger story with seemingly longer legs ... on Friday, 5/20/1927, 25-year-old American aviator, Charles Augustus Lindbergh successfully takes off from New York City for Paris, France on his solo, non-stop transatlantic flight in the single-engine Ryan monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, an epic adventure of 33 and 1/2 hour flight and 3,600-statue-miles in the air that captivates the world.

Teacher Hazel Weatherby

Headlines

Ruins

Ruins

Never the same again, the community eventually resumes a semblance of normality.  With pledges from the region (inmates of the state reformatory at Ionia donate $200) and national contributions (the largest donation comes from Michigan senator James Couzens, $75,000), the schoolhouse is rebuilt and becomes the James Couzens Agricultural School ... it is dedicated on August 18, 1928 and serves the community until 1975, when it is replaced by a $2.3 million high school in another location (where on Saturday, Mat 21, 1977, fifty years after the disaster, at the town's commencement ceremony, nine survivors of the Class of 1927 finally receive there graduation diplomas).  Demolished in 1975, the site of the schoolhouse is next transformed into the two-acre James Couzens Memorial Park which features where it approximately once stood, the cupola of the original schoolhouse, a picnic pavilion and benches, a Michigan State Historical Marker from the Michigan State Historical Commission (installed in 1991), a 2002 bronze plaque bearing the names of those killed in the tragedy near the entrance to facility, and a gazebo with picnic tables available for rental (also in town is Bath School Museum with many relics from the tragedy and the commemorative statue, Girl With A Cat, sculped by artist Carleton W. Angell and paid for from the pennies children of Michigan donate to the project.  Ghosts of the gone seemingly content, the location is now a quiet contemplation of the past and now a site for family picnics, the annual "Bath Days" festival, a farmer's market, family reunions, outdoor concerts and other town events.     

Rebuilt

The Cupola

Memorials

Rotting in Hell for his actions, the evil Kehoe leaves one last "message" for the people he hates in Bath ... his crime is all their fault according to the madman ... searching Kehoe's blasted farm, townsfolk discovery a wooden board wired to a fence at the edge of the property that the killer has stenciled with the message: CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN.

Kehoe's Message

  

 

     

     
   

 

  

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THE NORCO SHOOTOUTS

5/9/1980 - As if a mad, drunken Hollywood writer was penning a script mixing Old West gunplay with modern weaponry, sprinkled it with Doomsday beliefs and drug addled thinking, populated the story with a group of good and evil characters moving through their lives on feet of clay, and combined kidnapping, bank robbery, assault and murder into a crime spree of epic proportions, the suburban, desert, and mountain wilds of eastern Southern California are the real life site of a failed bank robbery and flight attempt known as the Norco Shootout that will change the way law enforcement arms themselves and operates across the country (the town comes by its name from combining its location north of the bigger town of Corona ... Norco ... and is also known as, "Horse Town USA").  The violent tale begins further west however, in Orange County, California. 

Wounded Officer Bill Crowe

Transplanted to Buena Park, California from Casper, Wyoming in 1956 when he is four-years-old, George Wayne Smith will grow up as the oldest son of a former Anglo-American police officer and his Japanese wife, in a region known for it's Christian conservative values, and it's famous twin tourist traps, Disneyland and Knotts' Berry Farm.  Attending John F. Kennedy High School, the well liked Smith will be a star and four-year letterman on the school's championship tennis team, become a member of the chess club, sing in the choir, and serve as editor of the school newspaper.  After graduating from high school, the youngster gets married to his 17-year-old girlfriend, joins the Army, gets shipped off to Germany for two years where he trains as an artilleryman in the use of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons.  While overseas, he also becomes a teenage divorcee when his wife finds a boyfriend.  Back home in Orange County, in 1973 he becomes involved in the New Testament beliefs of Pastor Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel, participates in a Newport Beach group baptism at the town's Pirate's Cove, and fueled by a weed habit he has learned to love in the service, soon begins planning for the return of Jesus Christ and the end of time.

Smith

Cavalry Church Beach Baptism

Assisting Smith in his plans is another young adult from the Anaheim area of Orange County two years older than Smith, Christopher Gregory Harven.  The two meet working for the city of Cypress in 1973 (before he leaves for a similar job in 1976 with the city of Fountain Valley), maintaining the city's parks and the grounds of its municipal buildings.  Long days outside keeping things green the pair bond over their love of camping, guns, music, pot, and the common experiences of serving in the Army, failed romances, and disdain for the police.  Unlike Smith, Harven is a long time troublemaker who is kicked out of the service for repeatedly not obeying orders, and believes the end of the civilized world would take place on March 10, 1982 when all nine planets of the solar system would align on the same side of the Sun in a cataclysmic alignment called The Jupiter Effect.  And the bond between the men becomes even greater when they decide to share a home in the Riverside County town of Mira Loma and begin to feel the panic of having bills to play despite losing their jobs (minor funds come the pair's way from odd jobs and selling small amounts of marijuana).  Deciding the end is coming soon and they don't have the funds to purchase a home in the wilds of Utah that they can convert into a defendable bunker for themselves and family once civilization ceases, while maintaining their addictions to guns and weed, the pair decide the necessary funds can be obtained by robbing the bank that Smith uses ... the Norco Security Pacific Bank located at the intersection of the town's Fourth Street and Hamner Avenue.

Once Upon A Time For Chris Harven

The flawed plan the pair concoct requires five participants, and the bandit band that will bring on their own Armageddon is completed with Harven (30) bringing his younger brother Russell (27) into the fold, while Smith (28) recruits two poor Mexican-American brothers from the Crow Village neighborhood of Stanton, California, Manuel (21) and Beliasro "Billy" Delgado (17) that he has become friends with as fellow Cypress workers to round out the gang.  An abundance of firepower accumulated and zeroed out in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, explosive devices made using the murderous recipes found in The Anarchist Cookbook, if all goes well the Delgado brothers will boost license plates for the gang's get-out-of-Mira-Loma vehicles, a van will be carjacked for the bank robbery, the weaponry of the gang will be loaded into the van, the local cops will be drawn away from the bank by a diversionary bomb being exploded before the robbery, with Beliasro remaining at the wheel of the van, Smith, the two Harvens, and Manuel will plunder the bank of what they hope will be up to $300,000 in cash, the gang will then drive to their getaway cars, and then vanish in different directions before meeting up once again outside of California after the money they've robbed has been launder in the casinos of Las Vegas.  Friday, May 9,1980 is chosen for the heist.  All, however, does not go well on that fateful day. 

Russell Harven

Manuel Delgado

Almost from the outset, things go wrong for the gang.  In the morning, Russell Harven and the Delgados grab a company van of General Telephone from the parking lot of the Westminster Mall, while allowing its driver to escape, that is rejected for being filled with telephone equipment.  Second try more successful, at the Brea Mall later in the day, 35-year-old Gary Hakala, a father of seven, is kidnapped (stopping to fix a loose side mirror and take a leak at the mall's Sears Department Store, he will be wrapped in heavy-duty shipping tape, stuck inside a cabinet in the vehicle's rear, and will accompany the robber's on the bank robbery), and his dark green 1975 Dodge Tradesman van is stolen.  Then the gang meets at Smith and Harven's home in Mira Loma where gear for the robbery, in military duffel bags is transferred into the van and the gang's two escape cars (waiting for their confederates to arrive, Smith and Chris Harvin have spent the morning smoking pot chased by gulps of Budweiser beer).  Among the items deemed necessary for the robbery are two yellow MacDonald walkie-talkie radios, semi-automatic assault rifles (an HK93, two Colt "Shorty" AR-15s, a Heckler .308), a sawed-off Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun, an assortment of semi-automatic handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition in fully loaded magazines (some in "jungle clips" suitable for increasing the already lethal capability and firing rates of the guns ... Harven will enter the bank with seventeen forty-round magazines strapped to his body), boxes of more than 3,000 rounds of extra ammunition of various calibers, two scoped Remington hunting rifles with hundreds of rounds of H&H .357 cartridges capable of bringing down an elephant, (one for each of the escape cars), two kits of survival gear that included maps, a compass, water purification tablets, extra clothing, field glasses, freeze-dried backpack food, cooking and eating utensils, emergency blankets (even insulin vials and syringes for Russell Harven's diabetes problem), six hunting knives, a nine-inch Bowie knife, two machetes, and a Samurai sword with a twenty-three-inch blade in its scabbard.  Completing the list of necessities are a dozen twelve-once homemade fragmentation grenades, six sixteen-ounce homemade fragmentation suitable for being gun fired, three Blue Nun Molotov cocktails, and the diversion bomb, a homemade weapon of six beer bottles filled with leaded gasoline attached to a small detonating device hidden in a cardboard box.  Gear loaded, the gang parks their getaway cars, a Z/28 and Matador wearing license plates stolen that morning from the Westminster Mall, next to a community Little League field a mile and a half north of the Security Pacific Bank they have targeted, then everybody gets in the van and they are off to detonate the diversion bomb.

Some Of The Gang's Weapons

Shortly after 2:00 in the afternoon, the bomb is placed at a strip mall under construction near where the site receives its natural gas.  Delayed fuse lit, the bomb ignites, but before it can set off an even bigger eruption drawing first responders to the area, a passing motorist sees smoke pouring from the area, stops, grabs the fir extinguisher from his truck and puts out the conflagration, the lawmen on duty in the town will not be drawn away, and unbeknownst to Smith, the city has just started having a third officer on patrol during the shift change from day to evening.  Despite the setback, after seeing the two days officers leave the area of the bank, Smith decides to go through with the robbery and at roughly 3:30, everyone but Billy Delgado, at the wheel of the van, storms into bank, forces everyone to the ground with their rifles, and begin pillaging the place, unaware that they have been spotted by a customer going into the Redlands Federal bank across the street, who tells a teller, who calls the Riverside County Sheriff's office with the news.  Relayed to all units, 28 seconds after the word that a 211 is in process, all hell breaks out in the parking lot of the bank (by this time a silent alarm has also been tripped).

The Bank

The Police Respond

On a two-minute clock to get the robbery done, the four intruders leave the bank when the allotted time runs out and are immediately confronted by the third officer they were not aware of, Deputy Sheriff Glyn Bolasky, responding to the alert from where he had been patrolling down Hamner Avenue.  Gunfire exchanged, outnumbered and outgunned, arms and face peppered with glass as bullets fly through his windshield, and wounded in the left shoulder, from beneath the dashboard, Bolasky throws his Impala into reverse and backs away from the confrontation and into the middle of Fourth Street, then despite his wounds, stops and with his shotgun, opens fire on the robbers from behind his vehicle as he communicates with Dispatch that the event is now a 1199, officer down.  Emptying his shotgun at the van as the robbers pull out of the parking lot, a single, quarter-ounce pellet mortally wounds Billy Delgado behind the ear and the van drifts across the street and into a chain-link fence.  Unable to move Billy's body, the bandits exit the van and once again begin firing on Bolasky, who receives yet another wound, this time to his left elbow, an arterial strike that causes blood to start pumping out of his body (his vehicle will take over forty bullet hits).  Help arrives though in the form of the day shirt officers, who had been nearby, only two blocks away, at the Donut Corral, enjoying an afternoon coffee break.  Deputy Sheriff Chuck Hille arrives first and goes to the assistance of Bolasky, pulling him to better cover while the gang takes him and his vehicle under fire, and eventually, after a wild ride over front lawns and between eucalyptus trees, gets the officer to the Corona Community Hospital for emergency treatment.  While Hille is helping Bolasky, Deputy Sheriff Andy Delgado (no relation to the two robbers) arrives on the scene and begins exchanging fire with the bandits while taking in to account that over 50 civilians are now at the scene, wandering out of a nearby Carl's Jr., a Stater Brothers store, a Century 21 office, the Redlands Federal Bank, and Murphy's Hay & Grain to see what all the commotion is about.  Believing he will be killed at any second as he draws attention to himself, Andy Delgado fires three rounds of buckshot at the robbers and grazes Chris Harven in the neck with a pellet, puts another pellet into the scalp of Russell Harven, and wounds Smith in the left leg, near the groin, and right thigh.  Keeping Delgado pinned down, the men carjack a 1969 Ford F-250 from Mikel Linville, a 24-year-old heavy machinery mechanic returning home from a job at the Ontario Airport ... a yellow and orange truck powered by a 360-cubic-inch V8 engine with steel utility cabinets on each side of its bed, an air compressor in back, tall cylinders of compressed oxygen and acetylene stored upright behind the cab, welding equipment, a 5-gallon can of gear oil, and variety of other heavy equipment which the gang converts into an armored car after throwing their gear aboard and exiting the gunfight scene with Chris Harven at the wheel.  In the four minutes and two seconds since the dispatch went out that an officer was down, one robber has been killed, three more outlaws have been wounded, two squad cars have been destroyed (the first of what will be thirty-two police vehicles being damaged or destroyed), civilians have been wounded by stray bullets (along with a host of near misses), and numerous buildings have been holed as the outlaws fire off over 500 hundred rounds of ammunition (incredibly, an unhit Gary Hakala manages to exit his shot up van shortly after his kidnappers leave).  All for only $20,112.36 that the bandits are forced to leave behind ... and the carnage is just beginning.

Officer Bolasky

Bolasky's Vehicle

Officer Delgado

The Van

Fleeing towards their escape cars parked at the little league field, the quartet moves through an area once known as Wineville, maneuver by a roadblock put up by the local fire department, then scare a civilian driver out of waiting for a red light to change at an intersection, but draw attention to themselves when they blast away at Officer Darrell Reed as the lawman drives past the robbers on his way towards the site of the bank robbery (Reed will be hit just below his left knee).  Almost to the baseball field, the escape cars no longer seem viable to Harven, and the bandits continue their violent withdrawal, now hoping to get back to their home in Mira Loma and perhaps hide there, all the while shooting up police (inches from death, lawman Rolf Parkes of Belmont Shore receives splattered glass nicks and has his scalp parted by a near miss from Russell Harven's gun, lawman Herman Brown takes multiple wounds to his neck, left knee, and left arm, and lawman Ken McDaniels is hit in the right shoulder by a fragment of a .308 round sent his way from Smith's weapon) and civilians (on the way to the market, Gilbert Pena has his face grazed by a bandit bullet) they encounter on the way.  And there will be even more of the same as the bandits pass through Mira Loma (it has been twelve minutes and twenty-seven seconds since the 211 dispatch of a bank robbery in progress was made).

Firing Positions

In Mira Loma, the pursuing members of the Riverside Sheriff's Office (RSO) and joined by members of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and Riverside Police helicopter Baker-1 (with spotter Paul Benoit inside).  Driving by the house where only hours before the gang loaded up for their hit on the Security Pacific Bank, the site is rejected as a hideout and the outlaws continue on their on their violent drive, chased the whole way by various law enforcement vehicles  ... CHP member Bill Crowe is hit by copper bullet shards in his arm, leg, scalp, and sternum, another bullet pierces the soft flesh of his ear, and another round goes through his left arm and exits out of his back just above his shoulder blade, a bike riding child has the end of a finger clipped by a .223 round, and lawman A. J. Reynard has a Russell Harven round punch a hole through the inside of his left elbow.  Easy to spot, at a small convenience store called the Can Do Market, with two gas pumps in front, Chris Harven pulls in to the lot and tries to carjack the 1974 white GMC van of Vietnam veteran Robert LeMay, but LeMay ignores Harven's Long Colt and drives off instead.  Stuck with the yellow truck, the gang then heads out of Riverside County, going northbound on Highway 60 (the Pomona Freeway) into San Bernardino, at first, with only Riverside detective Joe Szeles in pursuit.

Reynard's Windshield

On the Interstate, along with more gunfire, the outlaws bring some of their homemade explosives into play in their attempt to escape the authorities, with Szeles' Crown Victoria being the first car to be hit by grenade shrapnel.  In the air above the outlaws, San Bernardino County Sheriff's helicopter 40-King-2 (a Hughes 500 with Vietnam veteran Lieutenant Jon Gibson flying and Flight Sergeant Ron Hittle doing the observation work) out of the Ontario Airport replaces Baker-1, but not for long.  Flying directly overhead of the bandit's stolen yellow truck, the helicopter is hit by a .308 round from Smith's Heckler rifle that fragments and tears into electrical panels and wires in the cockpit (missing Hittle's testicles by inches), filling the chopper with blue smoke.  Backing away from the pursuit, Hittle advises Ontario Airport of the condition of 40-King-2 and requests 40-King-1 replace the damaged craft, which Gibson keeps in the air until the replacement arrives, then Gibson safely puts down at the Rialto Airport ... fearing the gun crazy bandits might start firing on commercial air traffic going into and out of Ontario Airport, authorities have shut down the largest passenger airport of the Inland Empire.

Shooting At The Chopper

40-King-2

No longer alone, Szeles is soon joined by a host of law enforcement vehicles participating in the pursuit from the RSO, the CHP,  the San Bernardino County Sheriff's department (SBSO), and city PD units from Ontario, Riverside, Fontana, and Perris.  As before, any units that get too close to the truck draw bandit bullets or handmade explosives.  Accelerating into the lead chaser position, CHP officers Parkes and Chisholm have grenade shrapnel pepper their vehicle, and eventually the car gives up its ghost.  The pursuit now moves from the Interstate and turns into the wilds of the San Gabriel Mountains in the region near Mount Baldy, moving into Lytle Creek Canyon, a location where the gang has spent countless hours practice firing the exact weapons they are carrying ... there are roughly law forty enforcement vehicles from different agencies, communication on varied radio frequencies chasing the outlaws, and only one has an assault rifle that can measure up to the weaponry of the bandits.  Still firing on their pursuers, the gang blows through the small community of Scotland, then the last settlement in the canyon, Lytle Creek Village.  They have been on the run for about forty-five minutes and have risen to 3,000 feet above sea level.  Paved road gone, on the dirt portion of the Lytle Canyon Road the flight and pursuit slows down to between thirty and fifteen miles-per hour (twenty miles away, attempting to establish a roadblock in Cajon Pass, a San Bernardino officer gets stuck on the tracks at a railroad crossing and loses his vehicle to a Union Pacific freight train pulling almost a hundred cars).  The plan of the gang is now to knock out the lead pursuit car, blocking the small road, and in the time it takes the pursuers to clear a path, vanish into the wilderness and night.  Negotiating the waters of a small creek, the outlaws reach 6,000 feet of elevation at the Stockton Flats campground ... at a blind curve in the road the acetylene tanks and can of diesel oil are ejected, but the gang's attempts to explode the materials and form an impediment to travel come to naught.  Above Stockton Flats, the outlaws turn on to the Mount Baldy Road, a single track of dirt, gravel, and rocks rising to almost 8,000 feet in elevation in 3.9 miles first cut into the side of the mountain in 1894 to reach a series of fourteen gold mines in the area   And then the pursuit up the road suddenly ends.

Mount Baldy Road

After a stretch of uphill road, on the downhill side Chris Harvin slams on the brakes and just missing sending the stolen truck off the road, a washout has created a fifty-feet crater in the road.  Everyone out, at the back of the truck Manny Delgado points his Heckler automatic rifle at the point where pursuit would soon appear, Russell Harven with the "Shorty" AR stations himself at the driver's side rear of the truck, and Smith, holding his Heckler .308, takes up a position to the left of Delgado.  While Chris Harven, armed only with the Long Colt pistol, heads forward to find a place to cross the washout.  Moments later, the first lawmen arrive and the gang begins blasting away with their weapons from about seventy-five feet away.  Leading the pursuit, former Army Green Beret and Vietnam veteran, 39-year-old RSO Deputy Jim Bernard Evans, a five year veteran of the department, screeches to a stop, and as his vehicle is hit by multiple shots, takes up a position behind the open driver's door and empties his .38 at the gunmen to his front, sending Chris Harrven to the dirt with a hit in his back, just below the outlaw's left shoulder blade.  Reloading at the back of his patrol car, Evans rises to fire at the bandits again and takes a round in the face that kills the officer instantly (at his internment in the Riverside National Cemetery, Evans will be mourned by his wife, Mary, his four-and-a-half month old son, Jim Jr., Mary's children from her previous marriage, Jim's ex-wife, and his two children from that marriage, Jim's parents, sister, and two brothers, and nearly a thousand law enforcement officers in their dress uniforms from fifty state agencies, along with friends and neighbors from the region ... eventually his family will be awarded a posthumous Medal of Valor in his honor).  Just behind Evans, SBSO officers D.J. McCarty and James McPheron, the only men in the pursuit with an automatic rifle (an M16 recently confiscated in a drug bust), are the next to come under fire from the outlaws.  Though wounded in the right elbow, and despite the magazine falling out of the rifle twice, McCarty manages the get the weapon firing and sprays ten shots towards the back of the truck ... and the outlaws retreat, each making his way beyond the washout.  As darkness begins to spread over Mount Baldy, the vehicle pursuit of forty long miles has ended, and the balance of the hunt for the outlaws will now take place on foot, and will not last long once a new day arrives.

The Washout

Officer Evans

Readying for the next day, a command center is set up at Glen Ranch, thirteen miles up Lytle Creek Canyon ... a command post with assets that will include helicopters (including a gunship on loan from the local military), dog teams featuring bloodhounds and German shepherds, mounted search-and-rescue personnel, night vision goggles, Hunt & Kill SWAT teams on loan from the L.A. Sheriff's Office, and hundreds of heavily armed law enforcement officers in cold weather gear and armored vests.  Search barely started into Coldwater Canyon, calling for help, a four man San Bernardino SWAT team makes the first arrest of Saturday, 5/10 ... the outlaw leader and man who said he would never surrender, wounded, after a night in the open of rain and light snow, George Wayne Smith has had enough.  Also having had enough, shortly after 8:00 in the morning, about three and a half miles north of the command post, the Harven brothers (Russell is in desperate need of an insulin shot) are found walking along a knoll and arrested by a group of law enforcement officers under the command of San Bernardino Assistant Sheriff Floyd Tidwell.  Later in the morning, as part of a fifty man sweep of Coldwater Canyon, Delgado is found hiding in a stand of mountain brush by two Hunt & Kill teams from LASO.  When the outlaw, .38 in hand, responds to the command to "freeze" by whipping his head around and turning on to his left side, he is hit by three .308 rounds and three loads of buckshot slamming into his torso (at his autopsy a pathologist will find sixty-two buckshot holes in Delgado's body) just as he shoots himself in the heart with his pistol.  With Delgado's suicide, what will become known as the Norco Shootout is over at a horrific cost ... in a crime scene stretching over forty miles in length (the largest in U.S. law enforcement history), over 1,500 bullets have been fired (there are too many miracle near misses of law officers and civilians to count), two outlaws are dead, one RSO officer is dead, over thirty police cars are damaged or destroyed, a helicopter is shot out of the sky, and fifteen individuals are wounded (seven officers, five civilians, and three outlaws). 

5/10 Search

Chris Harven Under Arrest

Smith Is Captured

Where Delgado Ends His Flight

Incredibly, the madness of what took place in Riverside and San Bernardino counties continues after the arrests.  Overseen by Judge J. David Hennigan, the trial of the Norco Three begins on June 15, 1981, and goes on to be one of the longest and most expensive in California history as it features the case being moved to San Diego county, the longest jury-selection process in U.S. history (a jury of twelve individuals and eight alternates is not seated until December 15, 1981), a defense attorney suffering a heart attack, two other defense lawyers are found in contempt of court, the judge having a souvenir photograph taken of the jury, the defense postulating that law enforcement gunfire killed Jim Evans, presenting a fictional character named Jerry Cohen as the planner and main culprit in the robbery and gunfights, numerous denied requests for mistrials, Chris Harven is pummeled by an inmate he won't identify (it is believed to be George Smith), a female investigator for the defense apparently sneaks marijuana into the Vista jail for George Smith, then escalates that behavior into bringing nude photos of herself into the jailhouse, and before finally being accused of having sexual relations with Smith in an interview room (the couple will be married on April 16, 1983, but eventually divorce).  After six months of testimony from more than two hundred witnesses and evidence presentation in the form of nine hundred exhibits by the prosecution and the defense, on June 30, 1982, both sides rest their cases.  On July 8, 1982, after receiving four and a half hours of instructions from the judge, the sequestered jury begin deliberations that will last fifteen days.  Not surprising anyone, the three outlaws are all found guilty of 46 felonies.  Then the penalty phase of the trial occurs in which life without the possibility of parole is chosen over execution for each of the bandits ... sentences that are finally affirmed on November 15, 1982, two years, six months, and six days after the robbery of the Norco Security Bank took place.

Smith After His Capture

Smith And Investigator Jeanne Painter

For those touched by the events of 5/9/1980, life is never the same, but they make the best of it as they can.  Damage to his van and police confiscation of the vehicle as evidence costs Gary Hakala his canning business, but he returns to teaching mathematics at the high school and junior college level, along with coaching wrestling, volleyball, and track, is named the city of Beaumont's Teacher of the Year in 2007, and survives the ordeal to become a grandfather of eighteen.  Officer Bolasky leaves law enforcement, joins the United States Air Force and rises to the rank of Lt. Colonel, specializing as an electronic warfare officer.  Officer Hille leaves the sheriff's office and after trying his hand at acting and running a carpet store while suffering from symptoms of PTSD, becomes a psychiatrist and as a doctor, counsels others suffering from the same disorder.  Officer Delgado leaves the RSO and earns a master's degree in business administration, joins the San Diego Probation Department where he helps create the department's youth offender program, and also spends ten years teaching U.S. history, criminal justice and administrative justice.  Officer Madden will become a detective in 1988 and eventually serve as a sniper for the RSO SWAT team, before retiring in 2009 to a position in plainclothes executive protection.  After being shot again, Officer Reynard will retire from law enforcement, go to culinary school, and become a chef at the Miramar Resort, before having yet another career in education, spending twenty years at Yucaipa High School teaching law and criminal investigation.  Officer Parkes will transfer to the Irvine Police Department where he will spend seventeen years with the department's SWAT unit and help create a police training video about the Norco robbery which is still used by police agencies across the country.  RSO Deputies, McDaniels, Brown, and Reed, all recover from their wounds and go on to have successful careers in law enforcement.  CHP Officer Crowe will become the first drug K9 officer of the department, taking out drug offenders with his partner, Ebbo.  CHP Officer Earnest will serve with distinction for almost thirty more years before retiring and then passing away in 2016.  SBSD Officer McPheron will serve out his successful career with the department, while SBSD Officer Lenihan will rise to the rank of lieutenant in the department's Homicide division before retiring after thirty-five years of service.  SBSD Officer McCarty will receive a Medal of Valor award for his actions on Mount Baldy Road, will spend thirty-three years in the department before retiring in 2010 as a sergeant, then moves to Arizona with his wife and then works in the field of executive protection.  And Mary Evans, Mike Evans' widow becomes a real estate agent ... retired and living in San Juan Capistrano, she will take great pride in raising her family, along with the antics of her seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

The San Bernardino Sun

For not only law enforcement departments of Riverside and San Bernardino, but around the nation, police engagements with armed suspects will never be the same after the events of May 9, 1980.  In what will be called the "militarization" of the police, outgunned by automatic rifles against their .38 revolvers, the hand guns of most officers throughout the land are soon replaced by Glock semi-automatic pistols with a 15-round capacity, military grade weapons, once available to only SWAT member personnel become standard equipment for regular cops on street patrol, and helicopter usage increases, with the fliers in air rides that are armed and armored.  Communications with other police agencies and departments also gets a practical overhaul.  And in a last bit of silver lining for the authorities, at one time not at all well understood, every shooting moving forward will also include the officers involved undergoing posttraumatic stress disorder therapies.  Behind bars in California, George Smith, Chis Harven, and Russell Harven are still waiting the Rapture.

The Security Pacific Bank Of Norco