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Thread: Norco bank robbery and shoot-out

  1. #31
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    Erick, you won't find many street-level tactical lessons in the book (and no firearms lessons). I think you will find some strategic ones.

    The police, especially Riverside Sheriff's Office, were clearly outgunned. The then-sheriff, who had apparently made significant improvements over his long tenure, did not seem especially interested in improving the agency's tactical response capability. While he made improvements in the aftermath of Norco, his initial statements seemed to endorse the status quo. As I recall, he remarked that his officers were as well trained and outfitted as any officers in California. I doubt that or else the LASD Special Enforcement Bureau would not have been brought in, but more importantly, perhaps someone should have been paying attention. That said, I wasn't yet an officer when this occurred so I may be looking back through a retiree's eyes.

    Interoperability of radio equipment was very much an issue. Most RSO personnel did not have the state-wide inter-agency channel. Our slain brother arguably might have survived had he known the bad guys were set up to ambush him around a blind curve. Communication between RSO and California Highway Patrol largely depending on cops listening to scanner (the way my former agency was for many years with the county police) as well as loudspeakers and hand gestures.

    Post-traumatic stress was a significant issue for officers in the incident. There was significant anger toward two of the first three officers on the scene by the one who was left behind when the other two bailed to head to the hospital. No criticism of them for doing that based on what happened, but it didn't appear blameless to the cop who perceived abandonment. RSO had no critical incident debriefing or stress management program back in the day.

    This incident, like others in recent times, was an explosives incident. While the bad guys' distraction bombing largely failed. They didn't seem that bright, but home-made grenade launchers firing explosives a hundred yards seem intimidating as do the hand grenades.

    Long guns rule. Many of the deputies deployed shotguns. We'd be better with slide guns today with tactical buckshot and extended magazines, but a single pellet from a slide gun dropped the driver of the get-away car. Likewise for the other side as a helicopter sustained damaged that put it out of the pursuit.

    Marksmanship counts. The slain deputy made a long range shot with a .38 revolver at over double today's qualification ranges that significantly wounded a perpetrator. Leadership counts. The San Bernardino Sheriff's Office was led by a street-cop at heart who seemed to care about the real world more so than his counterpart in Riverside.

    The book is not perfect, especially for gun bunnies like us, but it is worth a read.

  2. #32
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jnc36rcpd View Post
    Erick, you won't find many street-level tactical lessons in the book (and no firearms lessons). I think you will find some strategic ones.
    Thank you jnc!

    Quote Originally Posted by jnc36rcpd View Post
    <snip> Post-traumatic stress was a significant issue for officers in the incident. There was significant anger toward two of the first three officers on the scene by the one who was left behind when the other two bailed to head to the hospital. No criticism of them for doing that based on what happened, but it didn't appear blameless to the cop who perceived abandonment. <snip>
    The perception of abandonment, during the event or after, is a very fascinating one. I'm looking forward to getting through the book.

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Erick Gelhaus View Post
    Thank you jnc!


    The perception of abandonment, during the event or after, is a very fascinating one. I'm looking forward to getting through the book.
    What would you know about abandonment? LOL

  4. #34
    Revolvers Revolvers 1911s Stephanie B's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed L View Post
    The author obviously knew nothing about guns. But reading this, I wonder what other mistakes the author made regarding the account of the robbery, or what he may have made up.
    Reading between the lines of this article that was in today's edition of my local birdcage-liner, it was clear to me that the author is at or near Sarah Brady's level of being antigun.

    You guys will have to let me know if he's banging that drum in the book.
    If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.

  5. #35
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    So, since I’m completely un-conversant on the state of after market magazines at a time before I started high school ... just how common were 40rd AR magazines in 1980?

    And yes it s abundantly clear the author wrote fiction before this.
    Last edited by Erick Gelhaus; 07-01-2019 at 11:54 AM.

  6. #36
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    Finished up the book today. Overall, its decent. The author would have benefitted from deeper research into the firearms involved and their capabilities. He tries to explain the research he's done in this area in interviews and at the end of the book, but readers of the book with strong knowledge about guns will realize some more work was needed in this area.

    Ultimately, it is worth a read if for no other reason than to get some more information about this robbery. The narrative based on extensive interviews with participants does put you on the ground during the robbery.

    The part of the book covering the trial is less interesting. I ended up equally bored and annoyed by the antics of the defense counsel, the defendants, and some of the actions of the prosecution.

    Books like this are good to read because they also put all of the hot-button issues around law enforcement such as the "militarization" of police, public and agency administration reactions to high profile incidents, and PTSD in first responders in a historical perspective. These issues have been around for a long time and reading how others successfully or unsuccessfully handled them is important.

  7. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Erick Gelhaus View Post

    And yes its abundantly clear...

    Noting the reader's who have commented upon the author's lack of accuracy regarding items (firearms, etc), which generally are easy to research and verify, how much more or less accurate is his rendition of a dynamic event and all of the permutations that occur in such circumstances. This seems like a potential Gell-Mann Amnesia event.

  8. #38
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    A work of narrative history based mostly on oral history covering a dynamic event such as a violent robbery is bound to have some things that are off.

    Eye witnesses and participant interviews are not the be all and end all of any investigation of a crime whether you're writing the history of said crime almost 40 years after it occured or investigating it the day after it happened. Good history, like a good investigation needs to have the human point of view corroborated with physical evidence.

    The author set out to write a narrative history of a violent crime. It succeeds at that level, especially when using the story of the robbery to explore some larger issues.

    I definitely think the author lays out the case for heavier weapons for police for example. He contrasts the Norco robbery and the San Bernadino attack in 2015 and points out the 2015 attack was quickly and more efficiently resolved due to the agencies in the area being better equipped.

    In the end, it is not a major scholarly work exploring and corroborating every aspect of the Norco bank robbery. It is an interesting story that is mostly well told.

  9. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Stephanie B View Post
    Reading between the lines of this article that was in today's edition of my local birdcage-liner, it was clear to me that the author is at or near Sarah Brady's level of being antigun.

    You guys will have to let me know if he's banging that drum in the book.
    Here is another thing, the author writes it as a non-fiction book, but I am sure that he blended a lot of his own narrative fiction to it.

    In a lot of cases he writes about what various people were thinking right before the incident happened.

    Hell, this happened 39 years ago. I guarantee unless someone at the time was facing something major life event that they were worrying about--like a close relative in the hospital, there is no way that they would be able tell you what they were thinking about 39 years ago on some random day before something major happened.

  10. #40
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    Point well taken, Ed, but the guy did want to sell his book. Drama and excitement enters into that. If more people read the book, hopefully more will realize that the cops may need rifles and armored vehicles and so forth.
    From our point of view, he is careless with some terminology. He mentions "militarization of the police" and the increase in armored vehicles. I would have preferred that he had phrased that as more "more effective weapons and safety gear", but he wasn't whining about it either.

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