Newhall Shooting - A Tactical Analysis. Michael E. Wood
back. Like his hapless partner, academy classmate, and childhood friend, Officer Frago, Officer Gore was dead before he hit the ground. (Fig. 13)
The time was 23:56. The Pontiac had stopped just a little more than one minute earlier, and help had just arrived.
CHAPTER 4
The Second Unit Arrives
As Officer Gore fell, mortally wounded, Unit 78-12 was pulling into position roughly parallel and to the north of Unit 78-8. The nose of 78-12 was ahead of 78-8 by about half a car length and angled slightly towards 78-8, and the two cruisers were separated by just eight to 10 feet. The newly arriving patrol car was caught in the same chokepoint as the previous vehicle, only slightly more than a car’s length behind the Pontiac. (Fig. 14)
Officers Pence and Alleyn had driven into an ambush and came under immediate fire from Davis and Twining, who had moved to the front of the car for cover. Davis placed his left hand on the hood of the car for support and triggered the remaining three rounds in the Model 38 revolver from an outstretched right arm, and Twining shot the remaining two rounds in the Model 28 revolver at the responding officers as their car approached (Fig. 15)13
At 23:56, Officer Pence grabbed the radio microphone and broadcast an urgent message to Newhall Dispatch in an excited voice. Using the CHP brevity code for “Officer Needs Help,” Officer Pence broadcast: “11-99! Standard Station at J’s! Shots fired!”14
As Officer Pence was sending the desperate call for help, Davis and Twining reentered the Pontiac from the passenger side and armed themselves with new weapons from the back seat. Davis selected a 12-gauge pump shotgun with a sawed-off barrel and stock (loaded with six rounds of Remington-Peters 00 Buckshot), and Twining selected a Remington-Rand 1911A1 .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol loaded with a full magazine of seven, 230-grain FMJ cartridges and an eighth round in the chamber. (Fig. 16)15
As Officers Pence and Alleyn prepared to exit their patrol car, Davis moved to the front of the Pontiac and fired a shot from the shotgun, which raked pellets across the hood of the vehicle from a point near the center of the right fender and extending across the hood to the center of the windshield.16 Simultaneously, Twining attempted to fire, from a position near the driver’s side door of the Pontiac, a single shot from his pistol at the officers. The pistol failed to fire, and Twining ejected a live round from the pistol to clear it. In doing so, another live round jammed in the pistol and prevented the slide from going into battery. The malfunction prevented Twining from firing the gun, and he ditched it in the rear of the Pontiac on the floorboard behind the driver’s seat. (Fig. 17)17
After making the 11-99 radio call, Officer Pence exited the CHP cruiser, drew his six-inch .357 Magnum Colt Python revolver from its crossdraw holster, and began to fire at Davis and/or Twining, using the patrol vehicle’s open door as cover. (Fig. 18)
Just prior to this, as Officer Pence was bringing the vehicle to a halt and making the 11-99 call, Officer Alleyn was deploying the car’s Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun from the Lektro-Lok cradle. As Officer Pence exited the driver’s side and began to fire, Officer Alleyn exited the passenger side of the vehicle, with his issued hat securely in place, and pumped a round into the chamber of the shotgun as he made his way aft in the narrow channel between the two patrol cars.18 He rounded the back of Unit 78-8 and took up a position on the right side, behind the open passenger door of that unit. (Refer again to Fig. 18.) This “end run” was surely prompted by the fact that Officer Alleyn had been under fire since his arrival, and he felt unprotected due to the angle of Unit 78-12, which exposed the entire right side of the unit to the shooters.
As Officer Alleyn was moving, Twining climbed into the Pontiac and fished around in the back seat for a second 1911A1 pistol of Colt’s manufacture. As he was doing this, Officer Alleyn reached his position at the door of 78-8, and, apparently, having forgotten that he had already done so in the stress of the moment, racked the slide of the shotgun again to chamber a round. This ejected an unfired round of buckshot onto the ground, which was discovered later during the post-shooting investigation.19
Officer Alleyn fired two rounds of Western Super-X buckshot at Twining while he was inside the Pontiac arming himself with the second 1911A1 pistol. One of the pellets from these two shells penetrated the rear window of the Pontiac and, having spent its energy in doing so, struck Twining in the forehead. The pellet did not significantly wound him, but Twining would later complain that he had a “terrible headache” from the “hunk of buckshot in my scalp.” The wound “hurt like hell” and angered him, but while it made him bleed, it would not slow him down during the fight. (Refer again to Fig. 18.)20
Officer Alleyn also fired one shot from the shotgun at Davis while he was still at the front of the Pontiac, leaving marks on the passenger side of the vehicle.21 In doing so, Officer Alleyn ran the Remington 870 shotgun dry. Unfortunately, Davis’ shotgun was still loaded, and he fired at Officer Alleyn twice with the sawed-off shotgun, leaving a pattern of 13 pellet streaks alongside the right rear passenger door and right rear quarter panel of the CHP cruiser. The white passenger-side spotlight also took three hits at some point, probably from Davis’ buckshot blasts. (Fig. 19)
After being grazed by Officer Alleyn’s shotgun pellet, Twining exited the Pontiac through the open driver’s side door, leaving blood stains inside the vehicle on the left sidewall and the rear of the driver’s seat. He began to engage Officer Pence (and possibly Officer Alleyn) with the new pistol from a position somewhere near the forward driver’s side of the vehicle.22 Officer Pence continued to fire his revolver from his position behind the driver’s side door, apparently striking the left rear of the Pontiac near the area where Twining emerged. (Fig. 20)23
After running the shotgun empty, Officer Alleyn retreated from his position at the right door of Unit 78-8 to a position at the rear left corner of the vehicle. (Refer again to Fig. 20.)As Officer Alleyn turned to the rear to begin this movement away from the door, several witnesses saw him with blood on his face, indicating he had already been wounded during the exchange of fire with Twining and Davis.24