 | ||
Dep. Hille then returned to the scene.
After shooting and wounding Bolasky, the
remaining four heavily armed bank robbers then commandeered a
pickup truck from the bank parking lot. In abandoning
their van, they also left behind in the van about 2,000 rounds
of ammunition and 15 homemade bombs.
|
Security Pacific Bank in 1980,
where the bank robbery took place. The five thieves
got out the doors with only $20,000, which was
dropped during the pursuit.
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Then the fleeing gang took to I-15.
It was at this point, according to reports, that the occupants
began hurling homemade bombs or grenades from the back of the
truck.
An account in the Los Angeles Times states
that one of the officers reported over his radio:
“They’re throwing all sorts of stuff at us.”
The Times also reported that a CHP officer, Dennis Johnson,
described the bandits as “very professional with
military backpacks, gas masks and military-type banana clips
(ammunition).”
By now, the Riverside deputies had been
joined by units from San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department
as well as the California Highway Patrol, Fontana Police
Department and the Ontario Police Department. A
Riverside Police Department helicopter and a San Bernardino
Sheriff’s helicopter also joined in the chase.
Another Riverside deputy was injured when
his car was hit in the northern San Bernardino area.
It was late afternoon when Mary Evans was
driving her bus along a familiar route. She remarked to
a passenger, “Something must be wrong. I
haven’t seen a police car all afternoon.
It’s awfully quiet, wonder why.” She had been
accustomed to seeing patrol cars, CHP units, etc., as she
covered her route, frequently exchanging friendly waves with
the officers. Not on May 9. They were
elsewhere.
It was about this time that the pickup
truck sped off the freeway toward Lytle Creek, where another
sheriff’s vehicle was disabled by gunfire.
During the chase, the bandits fired
semi-automatic weapons and hurled beer-bombs at scores of
pursuing cars and civilian motorists.
According to a San Bernardino County
Sheriff’s report, Dep. Evans was in the lead when the
getaway truck started up Sierra Avenue toward Lytle Creek and
then entered the canyon.
Mary recalls having troubling thoughts
during the day as she went about her work as a bus driver.
“I could feel it. I knew something was
wrong. It was in the air — strange. A bad
day.”
Driving the 1969 truck was Christopher
Harven; firing from the bed of the pickup truck were Russell
Harven, Manuel Delgado, brother of the already slain Belisaro,
and George Smith.
The pursuit continued past the Stockton
Campgrounds onto a washed out dirt road, forcing the truck to
halt.
Then the gunmen abandoned their truck and
opened fire on the officers. A deadly gun battle
followed — described as an ambush — leaving
two more Riverside County deputies wounded — and one
deputy, Jim Evans, shot and killed.
However, Dep. Evans managed to get out of
his car, which was being sprayed with bullets, opened his door
and rolled out to the back of his unit. He continued to
fire on the trio with his handgun, at long-range distance,
wounding one of them.
CHP Officer Johnson told the Times he saw Deputy
Evans shot and killed as he tried to reload his weapons after
firing at the robbers. Dep. Evans was shot in the head
when he was “pinned down by gunfire during the
ambush,” reported the San Bernardino Sun.
Mary recalls that her husband said on the
tape just before he was killed: “They’re
setting me up for an ambush. I’m going to be
ambushed.” She added that due to the radio
frequency differences between the Riverside and San Bernardino
Sheriff Departments, messages from the overhead
helicopter had to be relayed through a second unit before
reaching her husband. “If he had gotten the message
in time, he probably would have stopped. By the time the
message reached him it was too late.”
Mary said her husband , a five-year
veteran of the Riverside Sheriff’s Department, had been a
First Lieutenant in the Green Berets during the Vietnam War,
and as a former military man he knew it was essential to have
the best equipment, training and communication. Her
husband had told her about two months before his death:
“Something big is going to go down, and we’re
not going to be ready for it. We’re going to lose a
lot of men here. This county’s growing; we need to
have two men to a car, not one-man units. We need to be
better equipped.”
Mary Evans was told later that Sheriff
Frank Bland, San Bernardino County Sheriff, was at the scene.
He was the one who “got my husband and personally
carried Jim’s body and placed it in his personal unit to
carry him back.”
When Mary Evans returned to the RTA office
after her shift and received the news about the Norco holdup
and the news that her husband had not picked up their infant
son at the baby-sitter’s, she immediately called the
Sheriff’s Department. “I talked to someone
in charge, asked him, ‘Where is my husband" Is he
okay" He never picked up our son, so there is a problem.
He never missed picking him up.’”
The voice on the other end replied,
“Well, Mrs. Evans, I can’t say anything to you over
the telephone. I’m going to send a car for
you.” She waited in the RTA dispatch office, and a
deputy picked her up.
“Tension was building; it was
hard,” recalls Mary Evans.
She recalls as soon as he pulled up to her
house she saw Sheriff Clark in the front yard. Then Mary
asked probably the most difficult question in her life:
“My husband is dead, isn’t he"”
The Sheriff said nothing but nodded his head “yes.”
She asked, “What time did he die"”
The Sheriff replied, ‘About 4:30 p.m.’
There was a pause. She looked at
him, then at her watch.
Meanwhile, following the savage ambush,
the robbers fled by foot into the mountainous wilderness,
leaving a bloody trail. Almost 200 officers searched the
area through the night.
According to reports, three of the men
surrendered to officers in the canyon in the early morning
hours of May 11. Another member of the gang was located
by early afternoon, refused to surrender, and was subsequently
shot by L.A. Sheriff’s Office SWAT officers.
Six other Riverside deputies were wounded
during an ensuing exchange of fire which ended in the San
Bernardino foothill area of Lytle Creek. Several
civilians were also injured, none seriously.
Riverside Sheriff’s deputies wounded
and hospitalized included: Darrell Reed, gunshot wound in
his leg; Glyn Bolasky, buckshot wounds in the left arm
and chest; Anthony Reynard, shot in the arm. Others
injured were Deputies Herman Brown, Ken McDaniels and Rolf
Parkes. Other participating deputies from Riverside County were:
Andy Delgado, Chuck Hille, Doug Borden, Fred Chisholm, Rudy
Romo, Dave Madden and Mike Jordan.
Mary Evans will never forget that day.
“May 9th was a strange day, right from the
beginning. That morning while I was getting the baby
ready to go to the baby-sitter’s, Jim stopped by with his
patrol unit. While I was getting ready for work, he
gently held James on his knee, leaned over, kissed his cheek
and looked at me. He said, ‘You know, some men
never get to see their sons grow up.’
Dep. Jim Evans was one of those men.