Norco '80

by Peter Houlahan

  RIVERSIDE DETECTIVE JIM HOPKINS WALKED UP THE HILL TO WHERE ROLF Parkes, Fred Chisholm, and Mike Jordan were standing beside Jordan’s unit far back in the pursuit line. Hopkins had been behind the wheel while Don Bender was working the CLEMARS. I hear you’re wounded, he said to Parkes.

  Parkes pulled back his hair to display the shallow rut etched into his scalp. “It’s nothing.”

  Look, Rolf, Hopkins said patiently. Nothing else is going to happen up here tonight. Do me a favor and take the chopper out of here and get that thing looked at.

  Rolf had been trying to rally the other deputies to form a posse and go after the escaping bank robbers on foot, but he knew Hopkins was right. He handed over the lever-action .22 and headed dejectedly up the hill toward the landing site.

  Coming down the hill at the same time to be evacuated by the Huey 500 was another wounded deputy. D. J. McCarty had finally relinquished the M16 to San Bernardino sergeant Dennis O’Rourke and was headed in the direction of the landing site a few hundred yards below. In the fading daylight, McCarty passed the SWAT team headed up to the ambush area. “If you see ’em, shoot ’em,” McCarty told them as he passed. “Don’t try to capture ’em; just fucking shoot ’em.”

  The heavily armed SWAT members were expressionless. D.J. saw it in their eyes, the look of soldiers marching into a battle they knew they might not survive. SWAT was accustomed to surrounding houses and bringing superior firepower to bear on a suspect, not walking into a remote wilderness in the dark to go up against equally well-armed men. There was none of the usual SWAT team swagger and bravado. These guys are scared, D.J. thought.

  D. J. McCarty and Rolf Parkes had never met before and had no idea what the other had just gone through. Once they had jammed themselves into the cramped compartment of the police Huey, Rolf asked McCarty what had happened up there. McCarty told him how Jim Evans had died. Parkes nodded silently. “What happened with you?” McCarty asked. Rolf told him. The blades of the Huey cranked up to a deafening roar and the chopper lifted off, McCarty and Parkes staring down as the mountainside faded into the distance.

  Below them on Baldy Notch Road, the painstaking process of backing dozens of law enforcement vehicles down to Stockton Flats was underway. It grew dark and a freezing rain began to fall. Back at RSO dispatch, Gary Keeter began a roll call to account for all the Riverside personnel in the field.

  “2-Edward-21?”

  “2-Edward-21, copy.”

  “Edward-320?”

  “Edward-320, copy.”

  On the mountainside, the blue and red lights still swirled, flashlights swept the ridgeline, and deputies huddled against the cold. Over the Riverside frequency, Keeter could be heard calling out the identification codes, amplified throughout the canyon by the vehicle radios and portables hanging off the hips of the deputies.

  “2-Edward-71?”

  “2-Edward-71, copy.”

  “Edward-20?”

  “Edward-20, copy.”

  “2-Edward-74?”

  On Baldy Notch Road, the men leaned against their patrol units and listened, studying the outline of the mountain against the dark sky.

  “2-Edward-74?”

  “Deputy Evans?”

  All was silent on the mountain.

  10

  SOME MEN NEVER GET TO SEE THEIR SONS GROW UP

  May 9, 1980. Norco, California.

  AT THE INTERSECTION OF FOURTH AND HAMNER, RIVERSIDE SHERIFF’S LIEUTENANT Floyd Oden found himself with overall responsibility for a crime scene that extended unbroken for more than forty miles, the largest in U.S. law enforcement history. After a very public screaming match between Oden and lieutenant Jack Reid over who should have command of the scene, deputy chief Ron Bickmore stepped in and assigned the job to Oden.

  The first thing Oden did was split Fourth and Hamner into two primary responsibilities to which he assigned two of his best investigators. Detective Joe Curfman was put in charge of the bank itself, interviewing employees and witnesses and gathering evidence.

  Oden designated everything immediately outside the bank “Crime Scene #1” and assigned it to his top evidence investigator, John Burden. Burden was a big walrus of a man with a bushy mustache and a meticulous eye for detail. His first challenge was to secure the crime scene and stop all the sergeants and lieutenants from waltzing their way through to gawk at Billy Delgado, now handcuffed per protocol and slumped over dead between the two front seats. What should I do with all this brass wandering around here? Burden asked Oden after receiving his assignment. Tell them to get the fuck out of there, Oden said. So that’s exactly what Burden did.

  Burden and his team had just started the painstaking task of finding, marking, gathering, and logging every last piece of evidence when a sergeant approached. “Oden needs your help,” the man said, motioning to an unmarked car just north of the intersection. “Delgado won’t give up his gun.”

  Burden let out a sigh and lumbered over to the car. Floyd Oden and Andy Delgado were sitting in the back seat arguing. Burden opened the door and slid onto the seat, using his ample girth to push Delgado into the center. Andy was now sandwiched between the two much larger men. “Give him the goddamn gun, Andy,” Burden said.

  Delgado dug in. “You’re not going to leave me unarmed,” he said.

  “Goddamn it, Andy, you know the rules,” Burden barked. “It’s evidence. We have to take it.”

  “But I never even fired it!” Andy protested.

  “Just give him the gun,” Burden said, softening his tone. Andy let out a sigh, took the .357 out of the holster, and handed it to Burden. Burden flipped open the cylinder and shook out the six unspent rounds. “Thank you,” he said, opening the car door and heading back in the direction of the green van.

  Shortly thereafter, an ID tech named Sue Dobson came over to Burden, gingerly holding a .45-caliber pistol she had just found lying in the dirt outside the van door. Loaded and cocked, the woman told him.

  At 5:58 p.m., Burden got on the radio with Larry Brown of the Norco Fire Department. There had been some sort of incendiary device detonated under a gas main just south of Second Street. A witness reported seeing a green van speeding away from the scene. “I think these might be your guys,” Brown said.

  Carefully sorting through the contents of the van, Burden spotted what looked like a dozen wooden dowels projecting out of a duffel bag. When he looked and saw what was inside, he immediately ordered everyone away and put in a request for the Riverside Police Department bomb squad.

  At 6:34 p.m., head of the RPD bomb squad, Bill Miller, began clearing the van of explosives—ten stick bombs, three Blue Nun Molotov cocktails, and a half dozen fragmentation grenades—and laid them out on Fourth Street. After that, Burden’s team went in and began pulling out gas masks, field glasses, a compass, forty-round banana clips, a machete, an AR-15, handguns, and unopened ammunition boxes, more than one thousand rounds in all. The MacDonald walkie-talkie on the passenger seat next to Billy Delgado was still turned on and crackling with static. The last item taken from the van was a samurai sword with a gym sock pulled over the handle.

  At 7:38 p.m., deputy coroner Doug McCoy arrived and removed Billy from the van. While searching the area around the body, he found a wallet and handed it to Burden. Burden opened the wallet, anxious to find out the identity of his dead suspect. He looked at the photo of a very white, middle-aged man with owlish eyeglasses. Who is this guy? One of the other investigators checked out the photo. That’s our hostage.

  John Burden’s job was far from over. In fact, Burden would not get to sleep for another sixty hours. At 2:00 a.m., he and Joe Curfman were at Grimes Funeral Home on Hamner watching pathologist Rene Modglin dissect Billy Delgado. Billy was X-rayed and sliced open, long needles sunk into his heart and bladder to drain out fluid samples contained therein, his stomach cut open and contents removed. His cranial cap was sawed and detached, his brain set on the table next to him while the doctor fished out the quarter-ounce ball of b
uckshot from the base of Billy’s cranial cavity.

  He dropped the tiny pellet into an evidence baggie and handed it to Burden. The detective stared at it, no bigger than the scrawniest kernel in a can of corn. This is all your fault, isn’t it? he thought. Just a few inches to the left and this thing is harmlessly rolling around a gutter on Hamner Avenue, Jim Evans is home rocking his infant son, and Billy Delgado is lying in a motel room in Vegas with his first hooker instead of on a stainless steel table with his brain beside him. And all because of you, you little motherfucker.

  AFTER A WHILE, SOMEONE TOLD ANDY DELGADO HE WAS NO LONGER NEEDED on scene. He was driven home and dropped off at the curb in front of his house. Andy stood on the front lawn for a long time trying to figure out what he should do now. He went inside and told his wife, Lucretia. He ate dinner with his seven-year-old daughter, Tanya. He fidgeted while watching news reports of the incident, grew restless and wandered around the house. His car was still back at the RSO, so he could not even go for a drive to clear his head. He called the station. Sure, they’d send someone over to pick him up; they needed to interview him anyhow.

  Around eight thirty that night, three deputies pulled up in an unmarked vehicle. They had a case of beer with them. We’ll take you to HQ, but we’re going to stop by the hospital first, they told him, tossing Andy a beer.

  The other deputies had been only peripherally involved in the incident but were still amped-up like athletes after the biggest game of their lives. Andy grew quiet and began running the whole gun battle over and over in his head, slowing it down so he could examine every decision he made in excruciating detail. Did I do everything right? Yeah, he was sure he had. He went back through it again, right from the 211 to when the yellow truck had disappeared over the rise. But the question would not go away: Did I do everything right?

  Glyn Bolasky and Darrell Reed had been moved out of the ER and were sharing a room, doped up on painkillers and flicking through local channels until they could find another report of the Norco bank robbery. Reed’s leg was elevated and bandaged, half the .223 bullet still lodged just below the knee. Bolasky’s elbow was wrapped in gauze, and his face, chest, and shoulder were patched up where bullet fragments and broken glass had been plucked from his flesh. Still, the young deputy was in good spirits.

  Delgado stood at the back of the room studying Bolasky’s bandaged elbow. He had expected it to be worse. Much worse. How bad is that arm? Andy asked. How many stitches? Just two or three, but it hit an artery. Well, I’m glad it’s not that bad, Andy said. Andy continued to watch Bolasky joking with the others, the sound of Chuck Hille’s radio transmission looping over and over in his mind. 2-Edward-59, I’m rolling Bolasky to the hospital. They fucking left me there, he thought, staring at the gauze wrapped around Bolasky’s arm. And for what? That?

  HERMAN BROWN AND KEN MCDANIELS, BOTH SHOT AT THE INTERSECTION OF Limonite and Etiwanda, were treated and released, bullet fragments either extracted from their bodies or left right where they were. California Highway Patrol officer Bill Crowe had been kept longer while even more shrapnel and glass were taken out of his body. Remarkably, not even the wound from the bullet that had entered his arm and exited through his back was serious enough to keep him overnight and he too was released. A. J. Reynard, the youngest deputy on the Riverside force and the one who had inadvertently chased the yellow truck for a quarter mile down Bellegrave, remained in Riverside General Hospital. The first of two surgeries on his wounded elbow was scheduled for the next day.

  D. J. McCARTY ALMOST DID NOT SEE THE PHOTOGRAPHER FROM THE San Bernardino Sun in time as he walked from the helicopter landing pad at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Chopper pilot Vic Brimmer gave D.J. the heads-up as they strode down the ramp together with Rolf Parkes just ahead of them. Uh, you might want to cover up that T-shirt. In the photo that ran in the papers the next day, McCarty is holding together both sides of the red windbreaker to hide the image of the Zig-Zag Man smoking a giant doobie emblazoned on the front of his T-shirt. The look on McCarty’s face could be construed as a slight smirk.

  The expression on the face of Rolf Parkes is decidedly different. It is the look of a man realizing how close he had just come to dying. The adrenaline that had kept him fearless in a pursuit under heavy fire was beginning to wear off. Parkes found himself overwhelmed with emotion. Under the bright fluorescent light of the emergency room, Rolf suddenly felt very far from home and utterly alone. He used a desk phone to call his wife. Susan was distraught. The department just called me and told me you had been shot in the head, she said. That’s all they said, that you had been shot in the head. She began to cry.

  To Parkes, Susan’s voice was that of a widow having been notified of her husband’s death. His death. Rolf began to sob, filled with an indescribable sadness for himself and for Jim Evans.

  Susan insisted on driving to the hospital, but Rolf told her no. It was a long way and he would probably be leaving soon anyhow.

  He hung up the phone and leaned against the wall but could not stop weeping. An instant later, he was screaming, his hands cupped over his right eye. There’s something in my eye, he yelled. In an examination room, a doctor used drops of dye to study the eye under a black light. He carefully extracted a shard of glass two millimeters long from under the eyelid. It had been in there since the initial attack on Holmes Avenue, but only now was dislodged by his tears.

  They put a patch on the eye and rolled Rolf into a room to wait for X-rays. San Bernardino sheriff’s detective Carlos Acevedo came into the room and asked Parkes if he could interview him about the incident. Still on an adrenaline crash, Parkes could barely make it through the questioning, pausing frequently to choke back tears. Detective Acevedo concluded his report with a notation:

  I observed Deputy Parkes to be in an emotional state at this time in that he kept holding back and crying several times during the interview. The interview was concluded at this time.

  D. J. McCarty looked at the chunk of flesh missing from his right elbow under the bright examination lights of the emergency room. This is probably going to hurt, the doctor said before commencing to dig around in the wound with the end of a long Q-tip. Every muscle in McCarty’s body clenched down against the pain. He could feel something inside his left fist. Why don’t you give me that? said an ER nurse. Bullets from Jim Evans’s revolver dropped into the woman’s hand. D.J. had no idea he had been clutching them since leaving the mountain.

  The doctor told McCarty they were going to keep him overnight for observation. McCarty told them they were not. They argued with him. McCarty walked out. When he got back to his apartment somewhere near midnight, his roommate, Mike Lenihan, was sitting on the couch staring blankly at the television set. D.J. sat on the couch beside him. You okay, Mikey? he asked.

  Sure, Lenihan said.

  The image of Lenihan dragging the body of Jim Evans across the dirt on Baldy Notch Road returned to D.J. Shit, thought McCarty, Mikey was definitely not okay.

  IT WAS 10:00 P.M. WHEN MARY EVANS FINISHED HER SHIFT AND PULLED THE big city bus into the lot at the Riverside Transit Agency where she had been a driver for the last few years. As she loaded her gear into a locker, a transit dispatcher called over to her.

  Hey, there was a big shootout in Norco today, she said. Your husband doesn’t work there, does he?

  Mary looked at the woman. Not in Norco, but if there was a big shootout, he sure as hell would have been part of it. Did he call?

  No, but your babysitter’s been calling for you.

  It’s okay, Mary told herself. No reason to worry. She went to a phone in the office and dialed their babysitter Josie’s house. J.B. Jr. was still there; Jim never showed to pick him up. Mary hung up and dialed the RSO. She was transferred to a sergeant. I heard there was a big shootout in Norco today, she asked the man in a firm voice. Can you tell me where my husband is?

  There was a pause. I can’t tell you anything over the phone, the sergeant answered.

&nb
sp; I know he was involved, said Mary, and I want to know where he is.

  We’re sending a car over, the man said. That’s all I can do.

  A few minutes later, an unmarked car arrived at the municipal yard, a stone-faced man she did not know behind the wheel. When they got to the house on Oakley Avenue, neighbors were on the lawn and a fleet of RSO vehicles were lined up along the curb. Above the crowd towered one man. Mary immediately recognized six-and-a-half-foot-tall sheriff Ben Clark. So, this is how it happens, she thought to herself.

  Mary marched straight up to Clark. Where’s my husband? she demanded.

  I think we should go inside, Clark said gravely.

  It was getting near midnight and Mary was done with the bullshit. What time did he die? she asked.

  Around four thirty, someone answered.

  Are you telling me my husband died seven hours ago and you never even came down to get me? The bus depot is only two blocks down from your headquarters. Everyone in that department knows I work for the transit authority.

  Mary turned her back on the sheriff and went into the house. It was filled with her friends and neighbors, all of them grief-stricken. Vince Kreter, a thirteen-year-old boy from across the street, was sobbing inconsolably. Jim had grown close to the young man after the death of Vince’s father six months earlier. Mary’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Michelle, sat trembling on the sofa, a neighbor trying to comfort her.

  Mary sat down at the kitchen table, remembering how Jim had stopped by on his way out to his shift that very morning to check in on J.B. Jr. He had sat in that same chair holding the infant in his arms. “Jim, how come you never put that baby down?” she said to him, smiling. “Because I want him to know who I am,” he had said. He looked up at her. “You know, Mary, some men never get to see their sons grow up.”

  “Excuse me, but there’s something I have to do,” Mary said, standing up from the table. She went to a back room, picked up the phone, and called Jim’s parents in Texas. Jim’s mother refused to believe her. “That can’t be true. I was just out there with him. I was just there!” Mary heard the receiver being set on a kitchen table a thousand miles away, the mother’s voice calling her husband to the phone. Mary thought of their house, all of Jim’s awards and commendations proudly displayed on the walls. God, how they adored their oldest son. Jim’s father refused to accept the news either. “I just can’t . . .” His voice trailed away. For a moment, Mary could hear wailing in the background, and then the line went dead.