Newhall Shooting - A Tactical Analysis. Michael E. Wood

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      CHAPTER 7

      More Backup Arrives

      At 23:56, when Officer Pence arrived on scene, took fire, and broadcast the 11-99 call, Unit 78-16R (Officers Ed Holmes and Richard Robinson), made another U-turn south of Thatcher Glass Company, directly in front of the oncoming Unit 78-19R (Officers Harry Ingold and Roger Palmer), and the pair of CHP cars responded northbound, Code 3. (Fig. 29)

      Officer Ingold would later recall that, as they approached the Saugus Café and began the sweeping left turn onto Henry Mayo Drive, they were exceeding speeds of 130 miles per hour, taking every advantage of the legendary performance of the Dodge Polara Pursuit vehicle.⁴¹ They likewise hit the “Edison Curve,” just east of the interstate on Henry Mayo Drive, at 90 mph. To navigate that turn (which was marked at 35 miles per hour), the officers had to drive into the opposing lane, entering high and coming out low as they had been taught in the Emergency Vehicle Operations Course (EVOC) at the Academy.

      Less than three full minutes from the start of their response, the units came to a screeching halt and joined the fight, just as Davis and Twining reached their Pontiac in flight, having killed Officers Alleyn and Pence moments earlier.

      The total time since Officers Gore and Frago first stopped the Pontiac was only four and a half minutes.

      The first unit on scene was 78-16R, who stopped about three car lengths short of Unit 78-8, facing north and slightly east on The Old Road. Gun smoke still hung in the air as Officer Robinson exited the passenger side of the patrol car with a Remington 870 shotgun in hand, narrowly missing being struck by the last .45-caliber bullet from Twining’s handgun, which hit the door of the car after Twining took a shot at his fifth CHP Officer that night. (Fig. 30)⁴²

      Officer Robinson hadn’t seen Twining yet, however. The first man that he confronted was the escaping Mr. Kness, who pointed the way to the fleeing felons with one hand, while the other still clutched Officer Alleyn’s empty revolver.⁴³ Officer Robinson crossed the ditch and leveled his Remington 870 shotgun over the top of the fence at the escaping Pontiac, too late to fire a shot. (Fig. 31). It was at this time that he saw the bloody Officer Alleyn, moving slightly on the ground in his green “Ike” uniform jacket, and he realized one of his fellow officers had been hurt.

      Meanwhile, Officer Holmes had exited the driver’s side of 78-16R and had seen Twining fire at them. Holmes fired one shot at Twining with his revolver as he was getting into the driver’s side of the vehicle, then once more through the already shattered rear window of the escaping vehicle as it sped off northeast through the gas pump islands with Davis at the wheel and Twining in the rear seat. (Refer again to Figs. 30 and 31.)⁴⁴

      Concurrent 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 СКАЧАТЬ