I recently moved to the Norco area, so this podcast piqued my interest. By chapter 2 it takes an anti police, identity politics tilt. She calls the Riverside sheriff dept a racist organization and a few minutes later she says a Mexican American in the org got a promotion to detective.

The topic and concept is very interesting, but all they do is glorify criminals and try to make them victims. Hold theses felons accountable and realize that they are just garbage people. Just because their skin is dark doesn’t give them get out of jail free cards.

Outstanding history of the actual event with lots of leftist talking points and one sided statistics sprinkled in along the way. The host is a really good story teller, but let’s her biases show through a little throughout and then a lot in the last 3 episodes. Question… who kill more cops in the US? How many unarmed people are murdered by cops as opposed to how many cops are murdered by armed criminals in the US each year???

Started very well (first 6 episodes) before becoming a soapbox for injecting personal ideology about guns and policing. Disappointing that journalists nowadays can’t just allow people to share their experiences and let the audience draw their own conclusions on a topic or subject matter.

Thanks for trilling your R’s.

Started off strong, suddenly it turns into an anti gun measure for police forces. Of course none of the anti gunners served a second on any force or have ever been shot at. Do not listen to this trash.

I agree that the storytelling was phenomenal. I was so intrigued and involved. Suddenly, the political twist had me questioning how well you did your homework for this podcast. I do recall, George saying, watch the editing to his daughter. It’s so hard to take someone serious when like Ronald Reagan said many years ago, they know so much that just isn’t true. I do forgive you and can only wish you the best but I have to check out now.

The show was decent until you decided to insert YOUR opinion on fake climate change into the narrative. I listened to 5 minutes and couldn’t take it anymore. Climate Change is a hoax

The storytelling of the Norco bank robbery was well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it, however, the show took quite a political anti-policing twist that was very disappointing. You can’t set forth these types of statements until you have actually risked your own life in the line of duty.

I really loved the first half. The host really did a great job on the storytelling aspect. I hung on knowing the story would wrap politically. I’m middle of the road and wanted to hear her POV. But I think where she failed me as a listener was the immediate divisiveness in episode 6. Not all people that want gun rights are the same. Not all cops are the same. Not all criminals are the same. Not all doomsday preppers are crazy. I was hoping she would take a full, middle of the road POV as a journalist but… this just further adds to the insane political division in this country.

Interesting story at first. But then goes off the rails when the journalist doesn’t understand why a cop would want to kill a bank robber that ithas been shooting at him for the past 40 minutes and killed a fellow officer. Then later episodes starts hard-core leftist talking points about how many blacks are shot by the police but never mentioning that blacks commit overwhelming number of crimes so the interaction with police it’s a lot more.

These guys just act so stupid it’s embarrassing to call this a Christian show. If they would just discuss their content it would be 5 stars.

After that it’s no more history, just a liberal’s opinion of how police are bad, bad, BAD! And how criminals have a justification for what they do. But also….the police better show up when they call!! Or else they’re racist.

There it is. Police over funded. Structural racism. White males.

Ya I agree, it was really good until episode 5. Then I turned it off. The woman saying it’s not the cops roll to end a life after they have killed people. Hard left took over and completely ruined this. Too bad.

The first 5-7 episodes are good and interesting, especially if you grew up in that area, like I did. But in episode 6 you start to hear the hard left take over. Sympathizing with the criminals. So frustrating.

I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts and this one started out pretty good. At around the 6 episode it became clear to me that a lot of shows personal opinions started to become apparent. Quite frankly by the leftist own standards the show has racist elements when it starts to talk about “white men” and survivalism.. This is when I stopped listening to this podcast. What a shame! They should have just kept to the facts and simply told the story. It’s funny how the defund the police crowd got there way in the deep blue cities and now look at the crime and murder rates in those cities..

This series was AWESOME! And I’m finally commenting(sorry, I’m workin on that), because of… THE NEW EPISODE! One of my favorite series ever! My dad was a cop in Torrance From the early 70’s til the 90s, and I’m a progressive anti gun liberal. So I love the great story, and all it says about society, guns, etc. I was lucky enough to experience an ar, uzi, a sniper rifle, and many others. I’m glad I got to, but I do have issues with guns. On the other hand, I know what my mom dealt with as far as dads safety. Thanks y’all.

Tell the story. There should be an asterisk next to this title.. *fascinating story ruined by political agenda.

Don’t know why we can’t just present the facts of the story

What started off so promising as a wildly fascinating true crime story devolves into a hard left political opinion piece. White man bad. Police bad. Guns bad. I would love for somebody more politically neutral to tell the story, by the end of the podcast, the story of a robbery gone bad in 1980 takes a back seat to polarizing political commentary. What a shame.

It is only at this absurd moment in history when a story about Norco 80 could spend any time at all on racial injustice. This is a story about bank robbing murderers, dumb ones. The police were unprepared, that’s it. Despite the production values being very high, I found this cringey stretch into racism to be a truly disappointing misfire.

Listen to the first 7 episodes. The narrative stays mostly to the facts of the case. This podcast takes a hard left turn and became extremely politically polarized in episode 8. Also, there were quite a few factual inaccuracies, especially when if comes to basic firearm knowledge.

I throughly enjoyed this podcast. The story of the 1980 Norco bank robbery and it’s ripple effect through history are both interesting and relevant to America life today.

Could have been a really good podcast but the agenda of the host is disturbing.

Host seems to favor the criminals.

They had a hidden agenda that doesn’t come out until after the story is told. It would have been better if they noted that their version of this story is political. I listened to the podcast wanting to hear about this insane bank robbery, and get away in a sense from current news trends.

Just another podcast where a pompous millennial takes a horrific event to push her own ideas where the white guy beats up on the Mexicans and Blacks.

Great podcast and interviews until the journalist took a dive into a limited politically trendy view that was not fact based. Journalism should not be biased. It should present both sides and allow the reader/listener an opportunity to come to their own conclusion. Here she did not allow that ... these evil men terrorized their own wives, neighbors, and citizens all in a grab for power and money. The police who fought them were not equipped with the right weapons or training which made the fight more dangerous, violent, and cause lives to be lost. Evil is never right nor can it be explained away. These bank robbers solidified their fate and the fate of others when they chose to commit a violent crime. They are not and will never be victims of a system - only victims of the same luring money and power that so many people in every culture have succumbed to over centuries.

I have a listen to dozens of shows on this topic and this is the first one that has been able to gather so many actual recordings from the events themselves. I had never heard 90% of the recording, and I thought that really added impact and credibility to the overall story. Frankly, it also made it much more interesting and real. While there were some important details left out in the initial episodes (i.e. the robbers planted a diversionary bomb before heading to the bank), overall this is very well done. I will agree with other reviews as I thought the same myself, at times this show does become more of an opinion piece than an actual historical narrative. While the officers involved might not have the right to take someone else’s lives, neither did the criminals have the right to take so many other peoples lives and terrorize a 40 mile area (including opening fire on a group of kids riding bikes). They were clearly out of control and needed to be stopped - by any and all means. There was no other outcome based on this series of events that would be positive. I find some of the commentary relating to the fact that the police had no right to take the criminals lives to be rather naïve and inappropriate. When a group of four men are firing thousands of rounds of ammunition at the police and public, what are the police supposed to do, ask them nicely to stop? Overall I think this is an ambitious effort and the narrator is clearly talented, although a bit biased.

Worth your time for the interesting story, but you only need to go through episode 7... I dumped out at E8 when it was noted the only robbers killed were brown?!!! Yes, they went there 🙄 Credit where it’s due though... up to E8 is pretty good

I’m surprised by the bias in this entire podcast. I wish I could live in the world of the narrator who lives in a world of unicorns. Uses this as a fulcrum. I guess she wants police disarmed and to use stuffed animals against heavily armed criminals

There is simply no reason for the narrator to bring race into this story. “She felt sad” that the police officer wanted to kill the individuals who were trying to kill him. What kind of crazy cockamamie stuff is that? You don’t get to give people a hug when they’re trying to shoot you and you just watch them blow your partners brains out!Episode 10 turns the entire story into the evil that the liberal media want you to believe! The narrator successfully destroyed a good story by interjecting her own liberal views. Sad!

The political bias on this podcast is absurd. Just law out the facts and let you listeners think and decide.

First few episodes are good but as the story goes on, the creators’ hidden agenda is revealed. At this point the podcast shifts from a news story to an opinion piece. Opinions are then presented as facts to back up a clearly biased narrative. Odd commercials appear intermittently in the episodes interrupting the flow of the story

It was really good while this story stayed on the facts. Goes political in chapter 8 and while we have a few things to work on. I don’t agree with this view of America at all

Was interesting in the beginning but became very political towards the end so I’m not finishing it I’d I wanted to hear politics I’d listen to the news

It was interesting, but the “fact checker” missed a lot of details. It does seem to have a significant amount of political bias.

The first few episodes are great, well done! Then you kinda went off the rails. But I understand, you don’t have the life experience that these policemen had. Nobody shoots at you because of this podcast, your job carries no real or actual danger, other than a bunch of 1 and 2 star ratings. You try to apply today’s issues to yesterday’s circumstances and unfortunately you fail miserably. This podcast would have been great had you only dealt with the facts surrounding this case. But you couldn’t help yourself and that was your undoing. But keep going, I’d listen again to something you produce, but I won’t be fooled again.

Norco 80 tells a good story. Compelling, fast-paced, interesting. But listener beware: there is a lot of opinion injected into this and leftist ideology of right and wrong and what could’ve happened, what should’ve happened, what might’ve happened, comparing facts on the ground and in action in 1980- off of opinions in 2021. That seems to be a fashionable notion these days- it needs to stop! I don’t fault the police for acting and feeling the way they did. That part of the story is very compelling. PS: an AR15 (AR= ArmaLite Rifle) is NOT, nor has it ever been a military weapon or factory full automatic. The M16 is a VERY big brother full auto weapon. AR15 were rejected by the military as too weak. It’s used as a varmint gun. It is NOT an “assault rifle”. Technically there is no definition of what an “assault rifle” is.

You have no clue.

I grew up in Norco and remember this day very well. My mom worked just down Hamner, and happy she was safe from this incident. I went to High School just a few blocks away. I wish this podcast had focused on the tragedy and not on the political aspects of the event.

The narrator has obvious anti police bias and a fervent desire to make this a racial issue. First, she includes the personal thoughts of a Latino deputy regarding his belief that he was intentionally left alone during the initial gun battle outside the bank. There is absolutely zero evidence this was the case. It was obvious that all deputies were freaking out and it’s just as reasonable that the second responding deputy acted emotionally in trying to help a wounded colleague rather than provide back up to the Latino deputy. Secondly, the narrator is incredulous that a deputy would admit that he was shooting to kill the perpetrators and offered that advice to other officers at the mountain scene. The evidence indicates that the bank robbers were firing thousands of rounds during the pursuit. The fact that civilians didn’t die is blind luck. The fact that one deputy was murdered and several others wounded is indicative of the disregard for human life that the bank robbers held.

The information about the incident was very informative, interesting and well put together. The only distraction what how the host kept bending over backwards to pull in a social justice angle.

If they would have left their political views out of this podcast I would have given it 5 stars. Episode 10 was just pure political garbage.

Too much opinion presented instead of fact. If you are going to cover a topic and want to do a good job, get a better grasp of the topic.

This podcast is so interesting and so well done. Antonia is my new favorite podcast host and I can’t wait to listen to anything else she puts together. Her empathy, directness, and delivery is unmatched. I’ve never left a podcast review but had to after I listened to episode 5 because I’m so impressed.

Quite impressive to see someone take a tragic and horrific non-biased event and turn it into a cops-hate-brown people editorial. Shame on you, LAist. I’m self-canceling anything you produce. Gotta love ‘cancel culture,’ eh?

There are bad/evil people everywhere and in any profession. There are racist people everywhere and in every profession. These are the unfortunate facts of life. It’s not fair to demonize an entire group of people because of a few bad seeds, much the same as it not being fair to discriminate against an entire race of people based on few illogical reasons. For all of those who want to contribute to this rhetoric should be made to fend for themselves. Don’t be F**KING cowardice hypocrites and call 911 when you or your loved ones are in danger... fend for your damned selves since you think police are so evil and racist. Shame on you for being so narrow-minded!

In the middle of Episode 1. I’m loving your information, recordings of interviews & news cuts & your delivery! Expecting to review again shortly with 5 stars.