A man was convicted Monday on four counts of attempted murder after a retrial for a 1997 bank robbery in Vancouver that ended in a gunbattle with police.
The Clark County Superior Court jury found Ronald Jay Bianchi guilty of two counts of first-degree attempted murder and two counts of second-degree attempted murder. In Bianchi’s second trial this year, jurors were asked to determine whether he helped his accomplices try to kill two Vancouver police officers.
In February, a jury convicted Bianchi of first- and second-degree attempted murder of Clark County sheriff’s Sgt. Craig Hogman, along with numerous lesser charges. At the time, though, jurors were unable to decide on the four counts alleging Bianchi was an accomplice in the intended murders of Officers Lawrence Zapata and Adam Millard. Prosecutors declined to dismiss the undecided charges and filed for a retrial.
Bianchi is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 15.
Prosecutors in this latest trial, which lasted nearly two weeks, asked jurors to pay attention to Bianchi’s actions, such as positioning the getaway car to ambush pursuing officers instead of putting space between himself and pursuing vehicles.
Defense attorney Katie Kauffman said jurors would have to decide what was in the minds of Bianchi’s two co-defendants, which she called a “very narrow” issue.
Overturned convictions
On Oct. 17, 1997, Bianchi, Michael Brock and Aaron Ahern set off pipe bombs as a diversion behind a Kmart store on Andresen Road. They then entered the former SeaFirst Bank branch on East Mill Plain Boulevard, about 2 miles away, armed with guns and wearing trench coats and ski masks. They ran away with several thousand dollars, according to prosecutors.
Their stolen getaway car was spotted by Hogman, who pursued. Ahern and Brock fired at the sergeant out of the car windows as Bianchi drove.
Brock pulled a grenade from his pocket and tossed it at the police cruiser occupied by Zapata and Millard on Blandford Drive, but it didn’t go off, Deputy Prosecutor Kristine Foerster said.
Bianchi crashed the stolen car on Blandford Drive, where Ahern and Brock were killed in a gun battle. Bianchi escaped into a wooded ravine but was arrested shortly after near Fort Vancouver High School.
Bianchi has already spent more than 20 years in prison. He originally pleaded guilty to 13 counts in connection with the robbery and was sentenced to 72 years.
In February 2017, the Washington Court of Appeals vacated his convictions on three counts of attempted first-degree felony murder after Bianchi’s attorneys argued that that crime doesn’t exist in Washington. (The appellate court said a defendant commits felony murder, regardless of intent, during the commission of a felony crime, such as a bank robbery; it’s impossible to attempt something that’s unintentional.)
Bianchi withdrew his guilty pleas and opted for a trial on amended charges.
