Hattip on this one to Morlock Publishing, who is finally out of Twitter jail. I believe this link will let you bypass the LAT paywall and read the story, but I’m not 100% sure. (As I’ve noted in the past, the paper is really obnoxious about paywalls, ad blockers, and incognito mode.)
This does not seem like a well thought out plan. “Let me just get that gun for you…hey, why is this box empty?” (This may be a faulty assumption on my part, but given that they say he was the manager, I’m assuming there were people other than him working there.)
LAPRAAC is the “Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club”:
Fifty years ago today, just before midnight on April 5, 1970, two California Highway Patrol officers, Walt Frago and Roger Gore, stopped a car with two men in it. There had been reports that a similar vehicle had been involved in a road rage incident a short time before.
The two men in the car, Jack Twinning and Bobby Davis, were heavily armed criminals. They had been planning the theft of explosives from a construction site near where they were stopped. Davis had dropped Twinning off earlier in the evening to scope out the construction site (other sources say that they were testing walkie-talkies they planned to use in the robbery, and that Twinning was taking some target practice), made an illegal U-turn across a highway median, and brandished a firearm at a driver he nearly hit. The display of the firearm was what prompted the call to CHP: the responding officers had no knowledge of Twinning and Davis’s criminal past, their plan to steal explosives, or of the weapons they had in the car. As a matter of fact, the initial report stated that there was only one occupant in the car.
When they were stopped, the two men initially refused to exit the vehicle. Gore managed to clear Davis from the car and started to frisk him. But before they could get Twinning out of the car, he shot and killed Officer Frago. Officer Gore shot back at Twinning, but was shot by Davis at close range.
Two other officers, James Pence and George Alleyn, were nearby and responded as backup for Gore and Frago. They got to the scene just after Office Gore was killed and immediately came under fire from Twinning and Davis. Alleyn fired on Davis with his issue shotgun, but was unable to score an incapacitating hit before running out of rounds. He then drew his issue sidearm and continued to fire on Davis, but was hit with multiple rounds of 00 buckshot from Davis’s sawed-off shotgun and killed.
A nearby citizen, Gary Kness, tried to help the officers, returning fire with Alleyn’s service revolver, but was also unable to score an incapacitating hit before running out of ammo.
Officer Pence emptied his revolver at Twinning and had to reload. CHP did not issue speed loaders at the time. He loaded six rounds and was closing the cylinder on his revolver when Twinning snuck up behind him and killed him.
Twinning and Davis fled as a third CHP unit arrived. Davis broke into a camper, pistol-whipped the occupant, and stole the vehicle. CHP was informed, stopped the camper, and Davis (who at this point had no loaded guns) surrendered. He was sentenced to death, but that was commuted to life in prison. He apparently committed suicide in his cell in August of 2009.
Twinning broke into a house and took an occupant hostage. The house was surrounded by police, and after a several hour standoff, they deployed tear gas and stormed the house. Twinning killed himself with a shotgun he had taken from Officer Frago.
None of the officers had been with CHP for more than two years. Three out of the four probably would have survived if they had been wearing soft body armor, but this was 1970: bulletproof vests at the time were heavy and bulky, and Richard Davis didn’t design the first Second Chance vest until 1976.
This is one of those moments in history that justifies the use of the phrase “agonizing reappraisal”. After the incident, CHP authorized, and then started issuing, speed loaders. CHP also reevaluated their training, and shared their investigative findings widely. Ultimately, the Newhall incident was one of the events that kicked off the “officer survival” movement in the US.
Mr. Ayoob’s followup, “New Info On Newhall“, is available online at the AH website, as is a third article focusing on Gary Kness and Daniel Schwartz (the camper owner): “The Armed Citizens Of Newhall”.
I’ve been looking at California newspapers thinking there would be a retrospective, but I haven’t found one. If I do, I’ll add it here.
As best as I’ve been able to determine, Gary Kness is still alive (he’d be around 82 today). He was honored by CHP for his efforts to save the officers, and is regarded as a hero by the California Highway Patrol to this day.
If anybody has anything to add about this incident (hi, Karl!) please feel welcome to leave a comment. I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, but some of the information out there is contradictory, incomplete, or inaccurate.
A couple of quick things from the weekend that I’m just now getting around to:
Catherine Pugh’s sentencing hearing in the “Healthy Holly” scandal was last week. The government is asking for five years. Her lawyers are asking for a year and a day.
But she claims this isn’t “a gift that she had to report under the city’s ethics laws”, even though accepting gifts from your underlings is questionable in any environment, and possibly illegal under ethics laws.
Also, and I say this without snark, having been in this position myself recently: Mayor Breed, if your 18 year old car is going to cost $5,000 to fix, maybe you need to be looking at another car instead.
In other news, I missed this story until Popehat tweeted part of it. Ken White’s take on this was more “look at the stupid things clients do”, which surprised me: I’ll touch on the reason why shortly.
Summary: the Los Angeles Dodgers (and other baseball teams) may be in trouble. Legal trouble.
Did the Dodgers do the RICO? I am not a lawyer. But the person who wrote the FanGraphs article is: I think she presents a good argument that, if the Dodgers are found guilty of human trafficking, that’s a “predicate offense” for RICO purposes.
Admit it: wouldn’t you love to see the Department of Justice seize the Dodgers in asset forfeiture and try to run a baseball team? I know I would: a government run baseball team would make the 1899 Cleveland Spiders look like a model of competence and sanity.
More seriously, there seems to be a long recent string of judges deciding that they can just disregard the Supreme Court and order newspapers to do whatever the judge wants. Just once before I die, I would love to see an editor or publisher say to one of those judges:
“Your order is illegal and unconstitutional, and we believe that you are fully aware of these facts. We will not obey your order. We will also not initiate violence. But if this court attempts to enforce its illegal order, we will treat that as the initiation of violence against our staff, and we will defend ourselves with whatever level of force is necessary to stop said violent acts.”
David Toschi passed away a week ago Saturday. FotB RoadRich mentioned this to me in the middle of the week – he saw it on a low-rent cable channel – but I had a lot of trouble finding a good obit. I couldn’t find the actual obit on SFGate: I was only able to get at an arthive.org version.
Anyway, “David who”? He was a famous San Francisco PD detective. He was one of the lead investigators on the Zodiac killings.
I don’t remember where I picked up this detail (maybe in the archive.org version), but that “newspaper writer” the NYT doesn’t name? Armistead Maupin, who was working as a reporter for the SF Chron at the time.
But that wasn’t the only reason he was semi-famous, at least among us common sewers connoisseurs:
(I wonder what that holster was: and if it’s out of production, how much do vintage ones go for? There’s a discussion on defensivecarry.com, but I can’t judge how accurate it is.)
(Damn shame. He missed out. And I still haven’t seen “Zodiac”.)
Edited to add: this might lead to a longer post later, but: there are certainly worse hobbies in the world than engaging in Steve McQueen cosplay. Though I will concede that could get expensive quick, especially if you go full “Bullitt” and start looking for a Mustang.
Mr. Black was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor charge instead of two felony charges. The plea was not approved by the local DA or his assistant, which is apparently a violation of policy. However, the current DA has said he’s not going to fire the ADA who took the plea. That current ADA is running for the DA position, and doesn’t have any opposition.
Back in September, a man named Brandon Berrott was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats against his girlfriend. After his arrest, the threats continued: he was jailed “at least” three time, had to post bail, and lost his job.
The girlfriend, Lisa Marie Garcia, ultimately called the mayor of Baytown and complained that the state district judge who was presiding over the cases against Berrott was taking bribes to let Berrott out on bail.
And you won’t believe what happened next, as BuzzFeed would say:
Mr. Berrott was lucky enough to have an attorney who actually believed in his innocence, and who was able to convince the authorities to do more investigation.
The defense attorney was Carl Moore. Folks in Baytown, remember that name, and please throw some business his way if you can: it sounds like he’s one of the good guys. The scary thing is: how many other people are in jail for similar reasons, and don’t have that kind of support network?
1. I’ve written before about my belief that “the verdict of a jury deserves a certain amount of deference“. I still believe that: the jury was there, I wasn’t, the jury saw and heard all the evidence, I didn’t, the jury deliberated, I didn’t. But sometimes, it’s real hard to hold on to your principles. Then again, if it was easy to have principles, would they be principles?
3. There’s a lot of smart stuff from other people out there on this case. In particular:
To expand just a bit on @rumpfshaker’s very good post — it doesn’t just matter whether you give a jury the option of a lesser included offense, like manslaughter. It matters how you argue it to the jury. /1
4. Also smart: Sarah Rumpf’s “Have We Been Lied to About the Kate Steinle Case?” There’s a lot in there that I didn’t know: I wasn’t following the case that closely, but other people have said the same thing. For example, the bullet that hit Steinle was actually a ricochet off the concrete pier.
There’s also some things that I have problems with, which are not Ms. Rumpf’s fault. In particular, the whole thing about the SIG being unusually prone to “accidental discharge”. I don’t own any SIGs: Mike the Musicologist is the SIG (and FN) guy. I also don’t own one of those cool trigger pull measuring gadgets, so I can’t tell you what the trigger pull on any of my auto pistols is. It looks like standard trigger pull on a Glock is somewhere between 5.3 and 6 pounds according to GlockTalk.
Is 4.4 pounds too light? That seems questionable. And a lot of those cited incidents seem to involve holstering the gun: could the problem not be with the SIG, but with people not keeping their booger hook off the bang switch?
It’s also not clear to me which model of SIG was involved in the shooting. I think this whole “bad gun!” thing needs some more investigation, and my short notes are already long enough as it is.
DOJ charges that the Suffolk County, N.Y. DA used "intimidation, threats and corrupt persuasion" to cover up a police beating. pic.twitter.com/LH56wkBFYo
I don’t have a lot to add here. I never met Dr. Pournelle, and I don’t think I’ve read any of his solo SF. I’m spotty on his collaborations with Larry Niven, though the ones I have read I think are better than Niven’s solo work.
I enjoyed his Byte column, though at the time some of his recurring tropes did kind of grate on my nerves. (See also: Gregg Easterbroook.)
The only other thing I have to say is: I’m ordering a copy of The Survival of Freedom, as my personal tribute to the good doctor.
Also among the dead: Don Williams, noted country musician.
Troy Gentry, also a country musician with Montgomery Gentry, was killed in a helicopter crash yesterday.
And finally, Rick Stevens, not a country musician, but a funk-soul one. He sang with the group Tower of Power, and did the lead vocal on “You’re Still a Young Man” from the 1972 album “Bump City”.
Then he got into heroin and other drugs. Over about a two-day period in 1976, he killed three men. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but California declared the death penalty unconstitutional and he was resentenced to life. He was paroled in 2012 and started working again.