Newhall Shooting - A Tactical Analysis. Michael E. Wood
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with the sound of Officer Holmes’ shots, Officer Robinson saw the Pontiac speeding away through the gas pump islands and noticed that the rear window was “disappearing,” either due to Officer Holmes’ gunfire, or because the movement of the vehicle dislodged the damaged glass that had been destroyed by Officer Alleyn’s shotgun blasts. He crossed the rail fence and went around the backside of the gas station to begin his search for the fleeing vehicle, whose escape he knew would be cut short by the fence and riverbed at the rear of the lot.
Officer Holmes moved forward and saw three of the fallen officers. He checked them out, turned off the motors on the two patrol cars and called Newhall dispatch on the radio, advising that there were three officers down; two were “11-44” (deceased, coroner required), and a third was seriously wounded. He went back to render aid to the dying Officer Alleyn and soon noticed the fourth slain officer. (Refer again to Fig. 31.)45
Arriving on the bumper of 78-16R, Officers Ingold and Palmer also stopped their car northbound on The Old Road, about 100 feet south of the shooting. Officer Palmer exited the passenger side of his unit with a Remington 870 shotgun, crossed the ditch and fence to his right, and entered the parking lot outside of J’s Coffee Shop. He approached a red Chevrolet Camaro, where a witness pointed to the northeast and told him that two officers had been killed in that direction and the suspects were beyond the gas station. Another pair of men behind a black Cadillac told him that two officers had been killed by the people in the departing red Pontiac. (Refer again to Fig. 31.)46
After parking Unit 78-19R and exiting, Officer Ingold initially went to the rear of his unit for a few seconds, seeking cover from the gunfire he heard while he assessed the situation. He quickly moved forward to join the other officers, as the Pontiac was speeding off. (Refer again to Fig. 31.)47
Officers Robinson, Ingold and Palmer began a sweeping search of the parking lot for the offenders, moving in the direction of the escaping vehicle. They were joined by additional officers who’d arrived on the scene from the CHP’s Castaic truck scales facility and other beats. There were a number of large commercial trucks behind the Standard Station that were searched before the officers saw the Pontiac, parked at the end of a dirt road about 150 yards to the northeast of the scene of the shooting. (Fig. 32)
When the Pontiac was spotted, CHP Officer Tolliver Miller cautiously approached the passenger side of the vehicle to clear it for suspects, with Officer Robinson close behind, shotgun at the ready. As they approached the vehicle, they heard Officer Holmes make his “11-44” call to dispatch via the external speakers on each CHP unit at the scene. The officers realized for the first time that their brothers had been killed by the men they were hunting; the men who could still be in the Pontiac they were now approaching. Crouching down below the level of the window, Officer Miller steadied himself with his left hand on the car and slowly raised up to peer through the passenger side window with his revolver in his right hand, its muzzle clearing the bottom edge of the window at the same time as his eyes.48
The car was empty.
In their haste to escape, the felons had chosen a dead-end road that ended with a heavy rail fence at the Santa Clara River. With nowhere else to go, they bailed out of the vehicle on foot, moving towards a dry wash to the north that ran roughly along an east/west axis. The pair split up when Twining returned to the vehicle to get additional weapons, grabbing the shotgun that had been taken from Officer Frago and the revolver that had been taken from Officer Gore. Davis followed the wash to the northeast across the freeway to San Francisquito Canyon, while Twining moved to the southwest, across The Old Road and an open field (now Magic Mountain amusement park), and then south along the foothills that paralleled the highway. (Refer again to Fig. 32.)49
As other officers split up into search teams and fanned out to the north from the Pontiac in search of the escaping felons, Officer Ingold returned to the scene of the shooting, took out a piece of yellow chalk that he used to mark accident scenes, and outlined the fallen bodies of his fellow officers, marking each with the name of the deceased.50
The deadliest law enforcement shooting of the modern era had come to a close.
It had taken four-and-a-half minutes. Learning the lessons from it would take decades.
Endnotes
1. I’ll refer to this event as the “Newhall shooting,” not the “Newhall incident” or “Newhall massacre” as others have. Calling this event an “incident” seems to downplay the significance of this historic lethal encounter, and terming it a “massacre” is equally misleading, since the term conjures images of unarmed or defenseless victims being killed by brutal, armed opponents. While the ruthless and violent nature of the offenders is not in question, the slain officers were certainly not unarmed nor defenseless during the encounter—they were merely overwhelmed by opponents who were better prepared to win the fight.
2. Simply do an Internet search using the keywords “witness memory” for a taste of the voluminous research and literature that exists on the subject.
3. Gibb, F. (2008, July 11) You can’t trust a witness’s memory, experts tell courts. The Sunday Times, <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4312689.ece>.
4. The shooting occurred within approximately 100 to 150 feet of J’s Coffee Shop, which had a large crowd of approximately 40 patrons and employees inside. Many of these people witnessed the shooting from the windows of the restaurant. Meanwhile, in the parking lot, motorists and truck drivers saw the events go down from different vantage points within 150 feet or less of the action. Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. pp.151-153 and Lanning, Rick. Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Los Angeles, CA. 6 Apr 1970.
5. These media contacts were alternately described as reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle by the CHP, reporters from radio station KFWB by print media, and reporters from KNEW radio station by Anderson. Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. p.177.
6. The CHP’s report said that “more than 40” shots had been fired during the incident, with 15 of them by the officers, but the research conducted for this account of the shooting indicates that the number is closer to 45, with 14 fired by officers and one fired by the responding civilian. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation files.
7. One of those weapons, a Ruger .44 Magnum Deerstalker carbine, was later recovered from their vehicle with a live round jammed in the chamber and four live rounds in the magazine. A second weapon, a Colt 1911A1 pistol, would later malfunction in the middle of the gunfight. Unfortunately, the remainder of the weapons worked as designed. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation files and Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. p.137.
8. Elements of the following narrative sourced from: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation files; interview with Gary Dean Kness; personal interviews with CHP Sergeant (ret.) Harry Ingold and CHP Officer (Retired) Richard Robinson; California Highway Patrol. (1970) Information Bulletin (July 1, 1970): Shooting Incident—Newhall Area. Sacramento, CA, and; Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. p.131-141, and; California Highway Patrol. (1975) Newhall: 1970 [Film]. Sacramento, CA, courtesy of Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society and SCVTV, <http://www.scvtv.com/html/newhall1970-chp1975btv.html>