Newhall Shooting - A Tactical Analysis. Michael E. Wood
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bodies had not been transported to the coroner yet when Sgt. Brady first arrived on scene and saw the brass on the ground. Additionally, to coordinate this kind of conspiracy, a large number of people from different agencies would have to have been compelled to lie about a very minor detail of the case, at a time when the investigation was just beginning and they were struggling to understand the very basics of what had occurred during this monumental event. It hardly seems likely that this minor detail of evidence would have been perceived as critical enough to warrant a conspiracy to lie this early in the case.
Officer Pence did not pocket his spent brass.
In the wake of Newhall, the CHP made an intensive study of training practices and made many corrections to ensure that bad habits that would jeopardize officer safety on the street were not taught during training. One of these corrections was a requirement to eject brass onto the ground during training and clean it up later, rather than eject it neatly into the hand and drop it into a can or bucket, as had been the practice before. It is believed that instructors and cadets of the era may have mistakenly believed that this change in policy was due to a specific error made by Officer Pence during the fight. The myth began, and it was innocently perpetuated throughout generations of officers in the CHP and allied agencies.
Anderson states that the rumor was propagated by law enforcement trade publications of the time, which really sealed the “fact” into the collective memory of the law enforcement profession. This is certainly the case with contemporary gun and law enforcement magazines, which have continued to treat this myth as fact, some 40-plus years later.
This does not detract from the valuable training lesson embedded in the myth. It is important that negative habits that can jeopardize safety are not encouraged during training. These “training scars” must be avoided, and the “pocketed brass” story is an effective and relevant metaphor to prove this lesson. There have indeed been other documented cases of this phenomenon occurring (pocketing spent brass), but it did not occur at Newhall.
Personal interview with CHP Sgt. (ret.) Harry Ingold (2011), and Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. p.146 and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation files.
39. CHP Officer Harry Ingold recalls that, after the fight was over, Officer Pence was found slumped forward with his knees and face on the deck, the brim of his uniform hat trapped between the ground and his forehead. His hands were trapped under his body near the waist and not in sight. When Officer Pence’s torso was raised up, his revolver was found in his hands with the cylinder open and six rounds of live .357 Magnum ammunition in the cylinder, indicating that he had almost completed his reload before he was executed by Twining.
Anderson describes that Officer Pence had fumbled two of the six rounds during the reload and was able to recover one of them from the ground and load it in the revolver before he closed the cylinder, but it’s not clear how the number of fumbled cartridges was known, and other elements (number of loaded cartridges, cylinder closed, etc.) conflict with Officer Ingold’s clear recollection of an open cylinder with six cartridges. Massad Ayoob’s narrative, based on the CHP’s version, confirms the notion that Officer Pence was able to reload all six cartridges before he was executed.
Disturbingly, it appears Officer Pence wasted precious moments immediately before he was executed by Twining. Had he accepted a partial load of the gun and returned quickly to the fight, instead of fully loading the revolver, he might have been able to close the cylinder on his revolver and fire upon Twining before Twining could deliver the final killing shot. Of course, it must be realized that Officer Pence was horribly wounded at this point and his body and mind were under tremendous stress, both of which would make this kind of detached, analytical thinking exceptionally difficult, if not impossible. Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. p.146, and Ayoob, M. (1995) The Ayoob Files: The Book. Concord, NH: Police Bookshelf, p.122, and California Highway Patrol. (1975) Newhall: 1970 [Film], and personal interview with CHP Sergeant (ret.) Harry Ingold (2011)
40. Mister Kness heard Twining make the comment and saw the execution shot immediately after his unsuccessful attempt to fire a second shot at Davis with Officer Alleyn’s revolver. Hearing the “105mm Howitzer” boom of Twining’s pistol and seeing Officer Pence go down was the final straw that convinced him he needed to escape. Interview with Mr. Kness. Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. (2010) The Newhall Incident: A Law Enforcement Tragedy [Film]. Santa Clarita, CA, courtesy of Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society and SCVTV, <http://www.scvtv.com/html/scvhs040510btv.html>.
41. Officer Ingold remembered the Polara’s speedometer was indexed up to 130 miles per hour and the red needle of the speedometer was in the black, past this last unit of measure.
The 1969 Polara was the most famous and adored of all the CHP cruisers, because it was the king of speed. During the test trials at Chrysler’s track in Chelsea, Michigan, the 440 cubic-inch, 375 bhp (brake horsepower) muscle car set a track record for the highest top-end speed achieved by a factory built four-door sedan—an impressive 149.6 miles per hour! The record remained unchallenged for 25 years, and even then there are those who question whether the 1994 Chevrolet Caprice (with its specially tuned Corvette engine), honestly and fairly beat it. Huffman, J. (1994, June) Chrysler Police Cars 1956-1978. Motor Trend Magazine, 102-106, and Ellestad, S. (n.d.) The History of Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth Police Cars-1969. [Online], <http://www.allpar.com/squads/history.html> and “Grant G.” posting as “Granttt73”. (n.d.) [Online], <http://www.flickr.com/photos/13411027@N00/566744694/>, and personal interview with CHP Sergeant (ret.) Harry Ingold (2012).
42. At the time, neither Officer Robinson nor Officer Holmes realized that their car had been hit by gunfire. After spending most of the morning participating in the manhunt for the felons and giving statements to investigators at the scene, the two officers took their unit back to the Newhall Area Office to do volumes of reports. While there, the day shift officers reported for work and received their beat and unit assignments. The officer who was assigned Officer Holmes and Robinson’s vehicle discovered the bullet strike during his pre-shift walk around inspection, and found Officer Robinson to question him about it. Incredulous, Officer Robinson followed him outside to look at the vehicle, and realized for the very first time that one of the felon’s bullets had struck above the “H” in the “Highway Patrol” rocker, dotting one of the bars “like a lower case ‘i’.” It was then that Officer Robinson realized how close he had come to getting shot as he bailed out the door. Personal interview with Officer (Retired) Richard Robinson.
43. In the stress of the event, Mr. Kness didn’t realize he had the empty revolver in his hand until he ran into Officer Robinson. It was then he realized that he was covered in blood, holding a gun, and fleeing from a shooting scene, none of which looked good. Hiding the gun behind his thigh, Mr. Kness directed Officer Robinson towards the killers and hoped that the officer wouldn’t think he was one of them. Fortunately for Mr. Kness, Officer Robinson had not consciously noticed him or the gun. Officer Robinson later recalled that in the extreme stress of the moment, he was so totally focused on the escaping Pontiac that he had no memory of running across Mr. Kness at all. Whether it was Officer Robinson’s extreme focus on the Pontiac/threat (tunnel vision?) or his rapid subconscious assessment of Mr. Kness as a “friendly” who didn’t bear further investigation, Mr. Kness fortunately escaped becoming the tragic victim of fratricide. After the brief encounter with Officer Robinson, Mr. Kness sat down in the ditch and waited, emotionally spent. Interview with Mr. Kness. Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. (2010) The Newhall Incident: A Law Enforcement Tragedy [Film]. Santa Clarita, CA, courtesy of Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society and SCVTV, <http://www.scvtv.com/html/scvhs040510btv.html>, Personal interview with CHP Officer (Retired) Richard Robinson, and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department homicide investigation files.
44. The sequence of events during