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Bank Robbers Lead Massive Police Chase, Then Shoot Down a Helicopter
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In 1980, five heavily armed men decided to rob a bank in Norco, California. Between them, the robbers came equipped with several automatic rifles, a few shotguns, various homemade bombs and devices, a massive cache of bullets, and, presumably, a Technodrome. The cops surrounding the bank were greeted with a massive hail of bullets, while the robbers used the cover to escape. But as they were speeding away, Officer Glyn Bolatsky dealt a fatal headshot to their getaway driver, sending their van careening into a light pole. Hopefully, somebody had the good sense to stand directly in front of the vehicle, so that they could dramatically leap out of the way at the last second.
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"Hey, watch this."
The four surviving robbers leapt out of the van and sprayed bullets at Bolasky's car (he was hit, but survived) before piling into another vehicle and escaping. The Norco Police Department then sent everyone except the meter maids up against the Quartet of Mayhem. An armada of police cars began a 25-mile car chase, only to be taken out one by one by the robbers' hellish barrage of gunfire and homemade bombs. A whopping 33 squad cars were damaged or disabled, and the robbers even managed to shoot down a fucking police helicopter. It made an emergency landing instead of dramatically exploding midair, but still, once you start downing helicopters, it isn't even an action movie anymore -- that's a mission rejected from GTA V for being too implausible.
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Even the Blues Brothers found it to be a bit excessive.
The robbers pulled ahead of the smoldering remains of Norco's police department and set up an ambush, because at that point they had forgotten the difference between "bank robber" and "crazed John Woo movie villain." One officer was killed in the opening salvo, and it seemed that yet another police department was about to be overrun by four maniacs with assault rifles. Then D.J. McCarty, an off-duty cop who heard about the shootout and realized they'd long since abandoned reality and stepped into Lethal Weapon world, finally arrived with the department's sole assault rifle.
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