under the hammer for the subsequent attempt.
Again, Mr. Kness could not have known there was another live round in the gun. After two unsuccessful attempts to shoot the empty shotgun, it’s entirely reasonable that he assumed the revolver was also completely empty when it clicked dry on the second attempt. It’s simply a shame that fate and the friction of war intervened to deprive him of a second chance to fire at Davis. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation files.
36. Unit 78-16R (Officers Holmes and Robinson) in the lead with Unit 78-19R (Officers Ingold and Palmer) behind.
37. When he attempted to fire the revolver a second time and the hammer fell on an empty chamber, Mr. Kness decided to leave the scene. Simultaneously, he heard a boom “like a 105mm howitzer going off, but it was only a .45.” The boom was the 1911A1 pistol being fired by Twining at Officer Pence. Interview with Mr. Kness. Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. (2010) The Newhall Incident: A Law Enforcement Tragedy [Film]. Santa Clarita, CA, courtesy of Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society and SCVTV, <http://www.scvtv.com/html/scvhs040510btv.html>.
38. Officer Pence’s reload has been the subject of much discussion and debate. It has been widely reported that Officer Pence reflexively pocketed his spent brass as he had been conditioned to do in range training at the CHP Academy. It has been reported that the spent brass was found in his pants pocket during the post-mortem examination, and this supposed “fact” has been used to support a multitude of theories about the quality of CHP training and Officer Pence’s presence of mind during the fight.
It is categorically false that Officer Pence pocketed the spent .357 Magnum brass during the gunfight. His pile of spent .357 brass, marked by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department evidence tag JHC #18, was found on the ground abeam the rear door on the driver’s side of the vehicle, right where Officer Pence was reloading his weapon before he was murdered. Evidence photos show the brass in that location, and the witness testimony of retired CHP Sergeant (then, Officer) Harry Ingold, who checked on Officer Pence and marked the spot he had fallen in the immediate moments after the fight, supports it. Sergeant Ingold specifically recalls seeing the spent brass on the ground in that location; the same location reported by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Criminalist Jack H. Clark when he tagged it “found by side of vehicle #2” and had it photographed as evidence item #18 (JHC #18), hours later.
This brass was also mentioned in the report of the lead investigator, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Sergeant John Brady, who said that when they arrived at 00:50 hours (less than an hour after the shooting ended), and began their inspection of the crime scene, he noted “several expended shell cases, possibly .38 or .357” on the ground.
It’s critical to note that the only spent revolver brass found loose on the ground at the crime scene was the brass near Officer Pence’s location.
The spent .38 Special revolver brass in Davis’ Model 38 revolver was still in the revolver, which was left in the rear seat of the Pontiac. The spent .357 Magnum revolver brass in Twining’s Model 28 revolver was dumped during the flight from the crime scene and never recovered, except for the one case that remained in the gun as it was found at the scene of the Schwartz robbery by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas L. Fryer. The spent .38 Special revolver brass in Officer Frago’s Officer’s Model Match revolver was also dumped during the flight from the crime scene and never recovered, except for one case that was found in the gun when it was located in the camper of Schwartz’s vehicle and booked into evidence by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Don G. Tomlinson. The spent .357 Magnum revolver brass (and single live round) in Officer Alleyn’s Model 19 revolver was recovered with his gun and secured at the scene by CHP Officer Jack Burniston, who put them on the floorboard of CHP Sergeant Paul Connell’s vehicle. These cases were later booked into evidence, when they were delivered by CHP Sergeant Cable to the LASO Crime lab. The single round of spent .357 Magnum brass fired in Officer Gore’s Colt Python revolver was recovered from the floor of the Hoag residence by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant John Brady. The remaining handgun cartridge cases at the scene came from Twining’s .45 ACP pistols.
The brass marked JHC #18 was later examined by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Crime Lab, where Sgt. James Warner determined that the brass had been fired in Officer Pence’s Colt Python revolver.
There is no mention of the spent brass in the detailed post-mortem report completed by Los Angeles County Coroner Gaston Herrera, M.D.
In summary, the only spent revolver brass that was found loose on the ground at the crime scene was the brass marked JHC #18 by Sheriff’s investigators. This JHC #18 brass was found in the location where Officer Pence was completing his reload when he was murdered. It was seen there by an officer who was the first on the scene and remembers seeing it in the immediate moments after the fight. It was also seen by the lead investigator for the homicide (who was from another agency), within 50 minutes of the end of the gunfight. It is not possible that this brass came from another weapon at the crime scene, as scientific examination verified that this brass was fired in Officer Pence’s revolver, and all other revolver brass at the scene was accounted for.
There is no reason to believe that the brass was recovered at the Coroner’s Office in Officer Pence’s pocket during post-mortem examinations, then transported back to the scene of the crime to be fraudulently deposited there, as some have speculated. The timeline doesn’t support such a theory, because the bodies had not been transported to the coroner yet when Sgt. Brady first arrived on scene and saw the brass on the ground. Additionally, to coordinate this kind of conspiracy, a large number of people from different agencies would have to have been compelled to lie about a very minor detail of the case, at a time when the investigation was just beginning and they were struggling to understand the very basics of what had occurred during this monumental event. It hardly seems likely that this minor detail of evidence would have been perceived as critical enough to warrant a conspiracy to lie this early in the case.
Officer Pence did not pocket his spent brass.
In the wake of Newhall, the CHP made an intensive study of training practices and made many corrections to ensure that bad habits that would jeopardize officer safety on the street were not taught during training. One of these corrections was a requirement to eject brass onto the ground during training and clean it up later, rather than eject it neatly into the hand and drop it into a can or bucket, as had been the practice before. It is believed that instructors and cadets of the era may have mistakenly believed that this change in policy was due to a specific error made by Officer Pence during the fight. The myth began, and it was innocently perpetuated throughout generations of officers in the CHP and allied agencies.
Anderson states that the rumor was propagated by law enforcement trade publications of the time, which really sealed the “fact” into the collective memory of the law enforcement profession. This is certainly the case with contemporary gun and law enforcement magazines, which have continued to treat this myth as fact, some 40-plus years later.
This does not detract from the valuable training lesson embedded in the myth. It is important that negative habits that can jeopardize safety are not encouraged during training. These “training scars” must be avoided, and the “pocketed brass” story is an effective and relevant metaphor to prove this lesson. There have indeed been other documented cases of this phenomenon occurring (pocketing spent brass), but it did not occur at Newhall.
Personal interview with CHP Sgt. (ret.) Harry Ingold (2011), and Anderson, J., & Cassady, M. (1999) The Newhall Incident. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books. p.146 and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation files.
39. CHP Officer Harry Ingold recalls that, after the fight was
