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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.