The Newhall Incident

easy too understand

Examines the shooting deaths of four California Highway Patrolman following a traffic stop,in Newhall Cal, during which, two well armed felons engaged in a gun fight first with two and immediately thereafter two additional Officers,resulting in the death of all four patrol officers Subsequent investigation identified the following as contrubuting factors. 1.At the time of the shooting, police across the country were armed with 6 shot revolvers; many were .357 magnum caliber, whose ammunition was both expensive and produced a substantial recoil. Since .38 Special ammo could be fired from a .357 revolver many agencies including the Cal H/P allowed members to use the cheaper and less powerful .38 Special ammo specifically "wadcutter" or target ammunition for practice / qualification, likely because of the reduced cost and very mild recoil.Because of this policy many members had seldom if ever fired their service revolvers with .357 ammo. And, that, under combat conditions many officers had trouble controlling the heavy recoil of the .357 magnum resulting inpoor accuracy. 2.The Officers were equipped with 2 6 round "drop pouches" containing extra ammunition. The pouches had a snap / flap at the bottom which allowed the officer to drop 6 rounds in to the palm of his hand, the problem that especially under stress and in a low light situation it was very difficult to hold the revolver in one hand and manipulate 6 cartridges and load them with the other. This caused one or more rounds to be dropped In this incident resulting in a fatal delay in reloading time.. 3. All of the Officers were inexperienced. As a result of this incident (and a subsequent court decision) Officers were required to qualify with the same type of ammunition that they carried on patrol. The drop pouches were discontinued and replaced with speed loaders in which 6 rounds were contained in a ring with a release knob on top which allowed the gun to be reloaded much more quickly. The devices were rendered moot with the adoption of semi-automatic pistols with large capacity magazines during the 1990's.

Cassady is not the author of the year but the story he's telling more than grabs your attention and holds it throughout the book.I first heard of the murders at Newhall in the early 80’s while attending a “Street Survival” seminar for law enforcement officer. The instructors described the incident in enough detail to forever leave a mark on a twenty-two year old cop just getting started in law enforcement. But there was so much more to the story than just the traffic stop and the murders.Jack Wright Twining and Bobby Augustus Davis were evil men. This book does a good job of chronicling their childhoods and history of crimes that led to the shooting at Newhall.My wife read the book and it scared the hell out of her. It there was ever a story for the silver screen, it’s this one.

I read this book in one sitting of about 4 hours. It is an excellent book - well written with short, realistic chapters. I could not put it down and I have been haunted by it ever since. As a former California police officer, I remember analyzing this event in the academy. It truly did change how law enforcement agencies trained for many emergent situations. I also went to high school(Merced, California) with Walt Frago's little sister; so I also had a personal connection to this story.Although it is difficult to read, I highly recommend this book. I have always appreciated the men and women who guard our communities but this book helped me reaffirm that there is such a "thin blue line" between "us" and "them". God Bless these men and women who serve and the families of all law enforcement personnel.

I was disappointed at the quality of the book construction. The paper is yellowed as occurs with the use of cheap paper. The black and white photograph are blurred and grainy. Furthermore, I was very disappointed in reading this book. Since one of the authors was a CHP Chief, I had expected a more in-depth narrative of the Newhall shooting. This book seems to tell the lengthy story of two violent murders and pretty much ignores any lengthy history of the 4 CHP officers. The entire actual shooting was briefly summarized, covering onLy 17 pages of an 187-page book. Although the 4 CHP officers made tactical mistakes in today’s world, the authors should have taken into consideration the training that the officers received in the CHP Academy. I have a clear understanding of the exact training that these officers received. I was a cadet in the same academy Class of Jim Pence (CTC-1-69). I knew him, and I experienced the same training that he received. In 1968-1969 the CHP focus was more on public relations than street survival tactics, firearms proficiency, and felony car stops. I would expect that a CHP Chief would provide some insight into the training the officers received. Don’t get me wrong. The CHP Academy is a premier training course. However, in 1969 we were repeatedly told things like “don’t point your gun at someone unless you plan to shoot them”. Holding shotguns at port arms was common. Shotguns were kept in patrol cars with a seal on the fore stock that would be broken if an officer “jacked” a round into the chamber at the Santa Ana CHP Office where I was assigned (probably a procedure used state-wide). If you broke the seal you had to write a memo explaining why you broke the seal. Firearms training generally used standard bullseye targets at various distances from the target. Cadets were required to pick up their empty cartridges while being told to quickly move to the next shooting stage. Cadets generally put the empty cartridge casings in their pockets to avoid having to get down and collect spent cartridges while being told to quickly move to the next shooting distance. In my class, the State issued us a 6-inch Smith & Wesson K-38 revolver and all our leather gear that included a very inadequate swivel holster and a “bottom dump” cartridge case that created a very slow reloading process. Most of us quickly purchased different revolvers that met CHP requirements, updated holsters, and the speed loaders that came available on the retail market. The bottom line here is that the CHP must share some of the blame for the death of the 4 officers due to inadequate training and lack of the best available equipment. I would have expected the author to at least briefly explain the training standards that existed during the training of all 4 officers. I do not recommend this book to anyone who wants a balanced discussion concerning the killing of 4 CHP officers.