The Newhall incident, also called the Newhall massacre, was a deadly shootout on April 5–6, 1970, in Valencia, California, United States, between two heavily armed criminals and four officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). In less than 30 minutes, four CHP officers and one of the suspects were killed and another man was pistol-whipped in what was at the time the deadliest day in the history of California law enforcement.https://www.chp.ca.gov/Memorial/Pages/Newhall-Officers.aspx CHP Newhall incident retrieved 3/5/2020
At about 11:54 p.m. on April 5, CHP officers Walt Frago and Roger Gore conducted a traffic stop of Bobby Davis and Jack Twinning in conjunction with an incident reported to the CHP minutes earlier. Davis and Twinning initially cooperated with the officers but then opened fire, killing both of them. Moments later, officers George Alleyn and James Pence arrived on the scene and engaged the perpetrators in a shootout. A bystander tried to help by firing an officer's weapon, but the three were outgunned. Both Alleyn and Pence suffered fatal injuries, while the witness ran out of ammunition and took cover in a ditch. A third CHP patrol car arrived on scene, and the officers briefly exchanged gunfire with the perpetrators, who then fled.
Davis stole a car and attempted to flee the area but was spotted by police and arrested. Meanwhile, Twinning broke into a house, taking the occupant hostage. The house was surrounded by deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and Twinning released the hostage. He committed suicide around 9 a.m. as the deputies entered the house.
In 1972, Davis was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Davis committed suicide at Kern Valley State Prison in 2009.
The Newhall incident resulted in a number of changes at the CHP, including procedural changes for arresting high-risk suspects, standardization of firearms and firearms training used throughout the department.
Victims Officer George Michael Alleyn, age 24 Officer Walter Carroll Frago, age 23 Officer Roger Davis Gore, age 23 Officer James E. Pence Jr., age 24 Daniel James Schwartz, age 40 (pistol-whipped, survived)
All four officers had less than two years with the California Highway Patrol (CHP). All were married and had a combined total of seven children.CHP: The Newhall Incident , chp.ca.gov; accessed October 25, 2014.
Perpetrators Jack Wright Twinning (September 11, 1935 – April 6, 1970), age 34, and Bobby Augusta Davis (November 15, 1942 – August 16, 2009), age 27, were both career criminals with long histories of violent felonies. Twinning had been in and out of eight different federal prisons since age 16, including a five-year stint at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, during which he killed another prisoner in self-defense. He had been released from the federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, eleven months prior to the shootings. Davis had been released from prison eight months prior to the shootings and was on parole in Houston, Texas. Twinning and Davis met and became friends in prison.
After failing to land jobs following their release from prison, Twinning and Davis met again in Houston, and drove to Sacramento, California, where they failed in their attempt to rob banks. They then drove to Los Angeles in a 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix. En route to Los Angeles, they noticed construction along the highway near Gorman and believed they could steal explosives there to commit a robbery.
Twinning and Davis rented an apartment in Long Beach. Soon after, they began observing an armored car delivering cash to Santa Anita Park. They devised a scheme to use explosives to rob the armored car on a freeway offramp. They returned to the construction site to procure the explosives. Inside their vehicle, they had amassed numerous weapons, including a Smith & Wesson Model 39 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a six-inch Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver, two snub-nosed Colt Detective Special .38-caliber revolvers, an M1903 Springfield .30-06 bolt-action, a Remington Model 572 .22-caliber pump-action rifle and a .44 Magnum Ruger Model 44 semi-automatic carbine.
Details Prior to the shootout On the evening of April 5, 1970, Davis dropped Twinning off in the mountains to steal the explosives. At approximately 11:20 p.m. (UTC-8), Davis was driving northbound on Interstate 5 south of Gorman when he made an illegal U-turn across the highway median, nearly colliding with a southbound vehicle driven by Ivory Jack Tidwell (1925–2016), a serviceman en route to Port Hueneme with his wife, Viola Bernice White (1936–2019), as passenger. Tidwell had an argument with Davis and both stopped their vehicles, whereupon Davis brandished a firearm. Tidwell persuaded Davis that the CHP was in the area, and Davis drove away. The couple immediately drove to a public telephone and reported the incident, including a description of Davis' vehicle, to the CHP. Officers in the area were informed the vehicle was wanted in connection with a misdemeanor. The area was sparsely populated; hunting and shooting were allowed.
Shootout begins Several minutes later, CHP officers Walt Frago and Roger Gore, partners in the same 1969 Dodge Polara patrol car, spotted the red Pontiac near Castaic and began following the vehicle. The driver was accompanied by a male passenger. Officers James Pence and George Alleyn, partners in a second 1969 Polara patrol car, waited in nearby Valencia ready to back up Frago and Gore. The suspect's vehicle exited the freeway at Henry Mayo Drive, near the present-day site of Six Flags Magic Mountain, and pulled into the parking lot of J's Coffee Shop, adjacent to a Standard gas station. Frago and Gore ordered the two occupants to exit their vehicle. Obeying the officer's orders, Davis exited the driver's seat and walked to the front of the vehicle, where Gore proceeded to search him. Meanwhile, Frago approached the other side of the car carrying a shotgun at "port arms" with the stock against his hip and the barrel pointed in the air.
As Frago walked to the Pontiac, Twinning exited the passenger seat and opened fire with a Smith & Wesson Model 28 revolver. Before Frago could aim or fire his shotgun at Twinning, he was struck by two .357 Magnum rounds and killed. Gore immediately drew his Colt Python and returned fire at Twinning, but in doing so lost track of Davis, who was right next to him. While Twinning and Gore exchanged gunfire, Davis pulled a .38 Special caliber Smith & Wesson Model 49 revolver out of his waistband and killed Gore with two shots at point blank range.
Shortly after Gore was killed, Alleyn and Pence arrived on the scene. Davis and Twinning immediately opened fire on them with their pistols, expending all their remaining rounds, and dove back into their own car for new weapons. In total, they had twice as many weapons as the four CHP officers they would eventually face had in their two patrol cars.
Davis pulled out a sawed-off 12-gauge Western Field M550 (a re-branded Mossberg produced for the Montgomery Ward chain) pump-action shotgun, while Twinning grabbed a semi-automatic Colt M1911 .45 ACP caliber pistol. Twinning's pistol jammed after one shot, but he grabbed another M1911 from the car and exited the driver's side. Meanwhile, Alleyn emptied his Remington Model 870 shotgun at the Pontiac, firing the gun so fast he accidentally ejected a live round in the process. A single pellet from the shotgun struck Twinning in the forehead, but it caused only a minor superficial wound. After expending all his shotgun rounds, Alleyn opened fire on Davis with his Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum revolver but did not make any hits. Davis returned fire with his sawed-off shotgun, striking Alleyn with ten rounds of 00 buckshot and inflicting fatal injuries.
Gary Kness Gary Dean Kness, age 31, a former U.S. Marine and computer operator, was en route to work when he came upon the shootout. Kness got out of his vehicle and ran over to Alleyn, who he attempted to drag to safety but was unable to move. He looked up and saw Davis discard his now-empty sawed-off shotgun and grab the Remington shotgun that had been dropped by Frago. Without realizing Frago had never fired the gun, Davis tried to cycle the action of the shotgun, but since it had not been fired, it was locked on a live round. Eventually, he accidentally fired the gun into the air. Startled, he dropped the weapon and grabbed the service revolver from Frago's holster.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the cruiser, Pence fired all six rounds from his Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver at Twinning but missed. Twinning returned fire with his Colt 1911, hitting Pence in the chest and in both legs. Pence fell to the ground, trying to reload. At the time, the CHP did not issue speedloaders to their officers; Pence had to reload one round at a time. On the other side of the cruiser, Kness picked up Alleyn's discarded shotgun and tried to fire at Davis, but the gun was empty. As Davis opened fire on him with Frago's pistol, Kness dropped the shotgun and returned fire with Alleyn's service revolver. His shots hit the Pontiac, and a fragment from one of the bullets lodged into Davis's chest but the shot did not incapacitate him. Kness was soon out of ammunition.
Pence was still trying to reload his revolver and failed to see Twinning's approach. As Pence inserted the sixth cartridge and started to close the cylinder of his weapon, Twinning shot and killed him from behind, with two shots to the head at point blank range. Kness took cover in a nearby ditch. As he did, a third CHP cruiser arrived, carrying Sergeant Harry Ingold and Officer Roger Palmer. After a brief exchange of gunfire, Twinning and Davis fled the scene through the darkness in separate directions as a fourth CHP cruiser arrived, carrying Officers Ed Holmes and Richard Robinson. Davis took Frago's revolver with him, while Twinning ran off with Pence's revolver and Frago's shotgun.
Davis is arrested At 3:25 a.m., Davis stumbled onto a camper parked near a dirt road. After exchanging gunfire with the owner, 40-year-old Daniel James Schwartz, armed with a World War II surplus Enfield revolver, Davis pistol-whipped Schwartz with his empty revolver and stole the camper. Schwartz called the police and reported the theft. Within hours the camper was spotted and pulled over by deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Without any more loaded guns at his disposal, Davis surrendered.Ayoob. M. (1995). The Ayoob Files: The Book, Police Bookshelf, 2004, pp. 114–129;
Suicide of Twinning
Three miles away from the shootout scene, Twinning broke into the house of Glenn S. Hoag (1928–1994), and took him hostage. Hoag's wife, Betty, and their 17-year-old son, Jeff, escaped and called police, and soon the house was surrounded by deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. For the next several hours, negotiators talked on the phone with Twinning, who bragged about how he had taken advantage of Frago's mistake in carrying his gun at port. "He got careless, so I wasted him." By roughly 9 am, Twinning released his hostage from the house. After issuing a surrender ultimatum, police pumped tear gas into the house and stormed in. As police, led by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant Robert Lindblom, entered the residence, Twinning killed himself with Frago's shotgun.Newhall Incident: The day that shook our valley , the-signal.com; accessed October 25, 2014
Aftermath