George Wayne Smith: Ringleader of the Norco Bank Heist

George Wayne Smith was the ringleader of the Norco bank robbery, a May 9, 1980 armed holdup of a Security Pacific Bank branch in Norco, California, that spiraled into one of the most violent shootouts and pursuits in American law enforcement history. Smith, an Army veteran turned apocalyptic survivalist, recruited four other men, armed them with semi-automatic rifles and homemade grenades, and planned to use the stolen money to fund a hideout in the Mountain West before what he believed was the imminent collapse of civilization. The robbery killed a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy and two of Smith’s own accomplices, wounded eight officers, and destroyed or damaged 33 police vehicles. Smith was convicted of first-degree murder and dozens of other felonies in 1982 and is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹

Who Smith Was Before the Robbery

Smith was the son of a Japanese mother and an Anglo father. He enlisted in the Army out of high school and served two years in Germany as an artilleryman, training that included battlefield nuclear weapons.² After the service he spent most of the 1970s at the Cypress, California parks department, where he met a co-worker named Christopher Harven who would later become his co-planner.³

During those years Smith fell into the born-again Christian movement then sweeping Southern California, attending services at Calvary Chapel and Melodyland Christian Center. Both congregations preached heavily on the Book of Revelation and the coming return of Christ, and Calvary Chapel’s Pastor Chuck Smith had predicted the Rapture would occur before 1981. George Wayne Smith took the prophecy literally and came to believe that only the well-armed and well-prepared would survive the chaos to come.³

His life came apart in 1979. He was fired from the parks department in August, and by Christmas he was unemployed, separated from his wife and daughter, and had no car. He moved in with Christopher Harven at a property in Mira Loma in Riverside County, and the two threw themselves into survivalist preparation. Smith grew his hair into seven braids in imitation of the biblical Samson. He designed and dug an underground bunker beneath the garage, 12 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 10 feet deep. They fortified the perimeter with corrugated fiberglass, razor wire, and carpet tacks to keep out the “marauders” they expected.³ Smith was articulate and persuasive, and he pulled Harven deeper into his worldview. Neither man had a serious criminal record. Prosecutors would later describe them as “weed-smoking, petty scofflaws.”²

Planning the Heist

Smith built his crew out of friends and their relatives. Christopher Harven, 28, shared his apocalyptic convictions. Manny Delgado, 21, was another former Cypress parks co-worker. Manny’s younger brother Billy Delgado, only 17, was recruited to drive. Russell Harven, 26, was Christopher’s younger brother.⁴

The group’s arsenal was extraordinary. It included two Heckler & Koch semi-automatic rifles (an HK93 in .223 and an HK91 in .308), two Colt AR-15 “Shorty” models with collapsible stocks, a sawed-off Remington 870 shotgun, and several semi-automatic pistols. They stockpiled hundreds of rounds of ammunition, 40-round magazines, and 40 German-made Brenneke shotgun slugs. They also built roughly two dozen improvised grenades from beer cans and PVC pipe packed with gunpowder and shrapnel, following instructions from The Anarchist Cookbook. The sawed-off shotgun doubled as a launcher for those grenades, giving it an effective range of about 100 yards.⁴ They practiced marksmanship at Lytle Creek in the San Bernardino foothills.⁵

Smith’s larger plan was to take the robbery money and disappear into a remote hideout in Utah or Wyoming, where the crew would ride out the collapse.¹ His refrain to the others was blunt: “I won’t get taken alive.”³

What Happened on May 9, 1980

Smith chose a Security Pacific Bank branch in Norco, a small Riverside County city east of Los Angeles, because he was already a customer there. The choice was later criticized as reckless. The branch sat far from any freeway, which made a quick getaway nearly impossible.⁶

As a diversion, the group planted an improvised explosive under a gas main about a mile from the bank, timed by a burning candle to draw police to the other side of town. A passing civilian spotted the device and reported it before it could detonate.⁷ Inside the bank, a teller triggered the alarm, and officers arrived while the robbery was still under way.

The robbers came out of the bank into an immediate firefight in the parking lot. Billy Delgado, the 17-year-old driver, was shot and killed as he tried to pull the group away.⁸ Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Glyn Bolasky, one of the first officers on scene, took 47 bullets into his patrol car and was hit five times, including in the face and through the left elbow, severing his ulnar artery. He survived.⁹

Smith and the three other surviving robbers commandeered a vehicle and fled east. The running gun battle that followed stretched roughly 40 miles across Riverside and San Bernardino counties, at the time the largest crime scene in the history of American law enforcement.⁶ The suspects fired rifles and launched improvised grenades at pursuers, destroying or damaging 33 police vehicles and forcing a police helicopter to land after it was hit.⁹

The chase ended in the Lytle Creek area of the San Bernardino Mountains, where the suspects abandoned their vehicle near the Stockton Flat Campground and ran on foot. As Deputy James Evans of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department rounded a curve in pursuit, the robbers opened fire with rifles and struck him in the eye, killing him.¹⁰⁹ Eight officers in all were wounded during the incident.

SWAT teams from multiple agencies fanned out across the mountains over the next two days. On May 10, 1980, officers found Smith on a hillside near Baldy Notch Road, hiding behind a manzanita bush with a leg wound from the Norco parking lot shootout. He surrendered. Christopher and Russell Harven were captured in the Lytle Creek wash while seeking medical help for Christopher’s injuries. Manny Delgado was tracked to a ridgeline. A pathologist later determined he died from a self-inflicted contact gunshot wound to the heart.¹¹

Conviction and Sentence

The joint trial of Smith, Christopher Harven, and Russell Harven was one of the longest and most expensive criminal proceedings in California history to that point.⁶ Prosecutors Jay Hanks and Kevin Ruddy built the case around the defendants’ apocalyptic ideology, casting Smith as the driving force. Hanks called Smith an “apocalyptic cult guy” whose grandiose beliefs had produced catastrophic violence.⁷ Smith was represented by defense attorney Clayton Adams.¹

In July 1982, all three defendants were convicted of first-degree murder and 44 additional charges, including kidnapping, armed robbery, use of explosives, and 24 counts of attempted murder. The murder convictions covered both Deputy Evans and Billy Delgado, the teenage driver killed in the bank parking lot.¹²¹³

The penalty phase was harder. The jury deliberated more than a week on death versus life without parole and deadlocked. Superior Court Judge J. David Hennigan discharged the panel on August 14, 1982.¹² Prosecutor Kevin Ruddy said the defendants’ clean prior records made the death penalty unlikely and that he “thought there was a good chance they would come back with life.” All three received life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹

Where Smith Is Now

Smith has been in the California prison system since 1982 and remains there under a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Author Peter Houlahan, who corresponded with him while researching Norco ’80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History, reported that Smith, now in his early 70s, appears to have grown reflective with age but has said little about the robbery beyond limited letters. Shortly before the book’s release, Smith sent Houlahan an apologetic letter that included a sketch of a dove, described by Houlahan as a symbol of the faith that had both motivated the crime and eventually pushed Smith to confront what he had done.¹⁴ Christopher and Russell Harven are also serving life without parole.¹³

Why the Case Still Matters

The Norco robbery exposed a wide gap between the firepower Smith’s crew brought to the fight and the weapons carried by the officers who responded. Deputies had .38 caliber revolvers and 12-gauge shotguns. The robbers had military-grade semi-automatic rifles effective well beyond the range of a police sidearm. The incident is widely credited as the origin of the modern patrol rifle concept, the idea that ordinary patrol officers should carry rifles in their cars rather than leaving them locked in an armory. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department began putting Ruger Mini-14 rifles in patrol cars shortly after Norco, and the California Highway Patrol followed in 1989.¹⁵ Analysts have pointed to the shootout Smith set in motion as one of the earliest catalysts of the broader shift toward more heavily armed American policing.¹⁶

1
SGV Tribune. How Norco 80 Author Peter Houlahan Tracked Down the True Story of a Deadly Southern California Bank Heist and Shootout
2
Los Angeles Magazine. Bank Robbery Norco 80
3
Daily News. Norco 80 Part 2: Would Plans for Apocalypse Be Helped by a Bank Robbery
4
Press-Enterprise. Norco 80 Part 2: Would Plans for Apocalypse Be Helped by a Bank Robbery
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PoliceMag. Survivalists and the Harrowing Norco Bank Robbery
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NPR. Norco 80 Is a Gripping Account of One of Americas Most Notorious Bank Heists
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Los Angeles Times. Norco 80 Peter Houlahan Interview
8
Press-Enterprise. Norco 80 Part 4: First Signs of Trouble Dont Stop Bank Robbers
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Press-Enterprise. Norco Gun Battle During Robbery Still Felt
10
Officer Down Memorial Page. Deputy Sheriff James B. Evans
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Daily News. Norco 80 Part 13: Heavily Armed Officers Descend on Gunmen
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UPI. Jury Deadlocked on Sentences for Bank Robbers
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Daily News. Norco 80 Finale: Careers Ruined, Police Tactics Changed by Bank Robbery and Gun Battle
14
CT Post. Ridgefield Author Peter Houlahan Revisits the Norco Bank Robbery
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Police1. How the Norco Bank Robbery Gave Rise to Patrol Rifle Programs
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Vice. How a 1980 Bank Robbery Sparked the Militarization of Americas Police