Proper Use of Tactics
“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu realized that the best battles are the ones that are won without fighting, and in this sense he had a lot in common with today’s law enforcement officers. It’s critical to understand that the Proper Use of Tactics, Ayoob’s second survival priority, may allow an officer to resolve a potentially violent situation without the use of additional force. An adversary that realizes the superiority and dominance of an officer’s position may determine that the officer’s advantage is too great and surrender without further resistance. This is the ultimate objective of tactics in the law enforcement environment—to end hostilities without further violence—and it prevents the officer from ever having to rely upon the skill set embodied in the third tier of Ayoob’s model (Skill with the Safety Equipment).
To be effective though, the tactics themselves must be sound and appropriate for the situation, and they must be properly executed. As we’re about to see, these preconditions did not exist for the CHP officers during the Newhall shooting, which opened the door for successful resistance by the felons who made good use of their own set of tactics in the fight.
When Officers Gore and Frago first fell in behind the Pontiac at Castaic Junction, they sensibly began to coordinate with Officers Pence and Alleyn for assistance in stopping the vehicle. A plan was quickly developed in which the stop would not be initiated until Officers Pence and Alleyn could join the pursuit, which would give the officers a superiority of numbers, a significant tactical advantage. The plan, though, was short-circuited by the felon’s early exit from the freeway and their self-initiated stop in the parking lot. These unforeseen actions placed the officers and felons at parity for several precious minutes before Unit 78-12 could drive the single mile that separated them from the location of the stop, thus reducing the officer’s tactical advantage.
While the premature stop temporarily interrupted the plan to achieve a superiority of numbers, it did not condemn it, and the officers should have been able to salvage it if they had slowed the action for a few minutes and given time for their backup to arrive. The felons had chosen the time and place for the stop, but, after stopping, made no attempt to exit their vehicle and accelerate the contact between them and the officers. The officers were in a position of tactical advantage and had no reason to expedite this contact, no reason to do anything other than hold the felons where they were until backup could arrive.
Unfortunately, the officers did not take advantage of the felon’s temporary compliance and the time on their side. Instead, they chose to proceed with extracting the felons from their vehicle and making contact with them. These premature actions guaranteed a superiority of numbers would not be available during the initial phases of the stop and needlessly sacrificed a valuable tactical advantage.
Use of Terrain
Another issue with the Newhall stop was the terrain. The felons chose to stop their car in an awkward location, right in the middle of the driveway to the Standard Station. This necessarily left the CHP unit in a chokepoint at the mouth of the driveway, where there was little room to maneuver due to the ditch and railed fence on either side of the driveway entrance. In contrast, the felons retained the ability to maneuver on all sides of their vehicle, placing them in a better position than the CHP cruiser. The felons also gained another advantage, because they channeled the direction of the responding backup CHP units; due to the design of the parking lot, any backup cars approaching from The Old Road would be forced through the same narrow chokepoint, where they could be easily monitored and targeted by the felons, who were thusly relieved of the responsibility of protecting their flanks and rear as they faced the officers.
Interestingly, the felons’ choice of stopping location also mitigated a key advantage of the CHP officers—control of lighting. Had the felons been stopped on the shoulder of the freeway as originally planned, their car would have been illuminated by the headlights and spotlights of the CHP cruisers from the rear, making the occupants very easy to see. This would have also placed the officers in the relative dark, hidden behind a “wall” of light, where it would be difficult for the felons to locate and target them. However, by stopping in the driveway, the felons placed both cars in a bath of light from the nearby service station and restaurant. Although it was just a few minutes before midnight, the bright lights from the service station clearly illuminated both vehicles as if in daylight and robbed the officers of a critical advantage.
This was a less than desirable position for the officers, but they had options to mitigate the disadvantages that they did not exercise. The first option for the officers was to continue driving through or past the scene so they could maneuver and approach the felons’ position from another angle, or even just disengage entirely, back off, and monitor while waiting for backup and another opportunity to stop the car in a more favorable location. While it may rankle the senses of some officers to do the latter (because it looks like they are running away), this tactic of “extending the fight” is a legitimate tool used by military personnel such as fighter pilots to ensure that the fight is joined under favorable terms and not from a position of disadvantage from the start.
A second option available to the officers was to command the felons to another location via the public address (PA) system. At the time the vehicles stopped, the felons had shown no signs of resistance and appeared compliant. The felons did not exit the vehicle to flee or launch a hasty attack on the officers, rather they simply remained in their parked car. Officers Gore and Frago had no reason to believe that the felons would not comply with a command to move the vehicle forward into the parking lot or to another location of the officer’s choice, but they made no attempt to resolve the situation in this manner, effectively ceding control of the terrain to the felons in the process.
It has been previously discussed that Officers Gore and Frago displayed a bit of confusion in their approach to dealing with the felons after they had been stopped. Their initial actions of taking up positions at their cruiser with weapons drawn were indicative of a hot- or high-risk stop procedure, but Officer Frago’s decision to advance forward to the Pontiac did not follow the “script” for a high-risk stop and instead mirrored more routine procedures used in situations perceived to be lower risk.
Officer Frago’s decision and actions will be discussed in greater detail later, but it is significant to note that the two officers appeared to be running different “plays” at this critical juncture, and it is unlikely that any set of tactics will be successful, no matter how sound they may be, if communication between the players is not strong and their efforts uncoordinated.
Hot Stop Tactics
As previously discussed, at the time of the Newhall shooting, CHP doctrine for hot stops held that the officer driving would move forward to search and cuff the driver after he had been extracted from the vehicle, while the passenger-side officer remained behind at the CHP cruiser in a covering position. The merits of this procedure would become the subject of intense scrutiny after the Newhall shooting, but on the night of April 5, 1970, one cannot fault Officers Gore and Frago for proceeding in the manner they had been taught as cadets at the Academy. However, the procedures themselves bear inspection for the valuable lessons that can be identified for today’s officers.
Witness statements indicate that, upon stopping their vehicle, Officers Gore and Frago established positions around their cruiser to confront the felons, with Officer Gore aiming his revolver across the driver’s side front fender and Officer Frago taking up a position with the CHP shotgun at the right front fender, just behind the headlight. Officer Gore’s position was compatible with a hot stop procedure, but Officer Frago’s high-profile, exposed position was more typical of a low-risk stop. The behind-the-headlight position was indeed part of the CHP Academy’s Enforcement Tactics training and cadet manual, but it appears that cadets were taught to use the car’s open door for cover when circumstances appeared to be more threatening and weapons and hot stop procedures were warranted. As such, Officer Frago’s initial positioning is puzzling.33
Witness statements also indicate that, during the initial moments of the stop, Officer Gore directed the occupants of the Pontiac to exit their vehicle with their hands up, but they did not respond. The command had to be given a second and third time before the driver (Davis) finally exited the vehicle, and even then Officer Gore had to tell him again to get his hands up. The passenger (Twining) remained in the vehicle, against directions.
It has been previously discussed that the resistance of the passengers to follow instructions and exit the vehicle should have caused the officers to reassess the situation and the intentions of the passengers. In the context of tactics, this would have been the time for the officers to realize that the subjects were resistant and that more precautions would be necessary in dealing with them, precautions that should have included delaying an approach to the vehicle until the passenger complied with instructions and backup was available. Knowing that the suspects had a weapon and seeing that they had failed to follow the orders given to them, it would have been a good time for the officers to remain in their ensconced positions with weapons directed at the threat, rather than advancing into the threat zone and forcing the confrontation before their backup could arrive. Before backup arrived, this would have left Officers Gore and Frago in the most advantageous position at the beginning of the fight—weapons on target, the officers behind cover.34
Unfortunately, the officers did not recognize this and chose to press the confrontation, with Officer Gore approaching the vehicle after Davis finally exited from the driver’s side of the Pontiac. The felons may not have been following the script, but Officer Gore did, executing his portion of the CHP hot stop procedure which required him to advance on the vehicle and take the suspects into custody while being covered by Officer Frago.
This action would not be prudent or directed today, using the modern felony stop procedures developed after Newhall. It is now recognized that moving an officer forward to the suspect vehicle eliminates many of his advantages, such as cover, access to radios, lighting, and weapons in the vehicle, clear and secure communication with his partner, and so on. It also places him “down range,” in the same general area that his partner would be expected to shoot, should it become necessary for him to fire in support of the contact officer. Additionally, using these procedures allows the offenders to retain the advantages of cover, mutual support and communication, access to weapons, and continued access to the controls of their vehicle, which could be used as a weapon or escape vehicle.
These factors were not given the proper consideration at the time, and the hot stop tactics were therefore flawed. The old tactics negated the officer’s advantages and maximized the offender’s. They moved an officer into a vulnerable position inside the suspect’s killing zone, a place where the suspect held all the tactical advantages. The new, post-Newhall, felony-stop tactics reverse the arrangement and allow for a greater level of officer safety, but Officers Gore and Frago would have to write those lessons in their own blood before they became commonplace in law enforcement.
Search and Handcuffing Procedures
Another area of concern in the Newhall shooting were the procedures for searching and handcuffing suspects. As difficult as it might be to imagine it today, at the time the Newhall officers were CHP Academy cadets, there were no written materials that outlined the basic searching and handcuffing procedures to be used by CHP officers in the field. The cadets received briefings and hands-on instruction and took notes as they were able, but formal textbooks, manuals, or handouts describing and depicting the approved procedures were not available to the cadets.35
Perhaps this is not surprising, as the CHP Academy syllabus of the era dedicated just two hours of the 900-hour program to the complex and training intensive skill of handcuffing, yet allowed twice that amount of time, four hours, to cover topics of dubious worth such as “State Government.” The hands-on “Control Techniques” class received equal time as the much more academic (frivolous?) “Enforcement Psychology” class (12 hours), and only about half the amount of time as “Reports.”36 Officers Gore and Frago could have overcome these training deficits and improved their skills with enough instruction and practical experience after the Academy, but, as previously discussed, supervised instruction was in short supply in the rapidly expanding Highway Patrol of 1970, and the officers hadn’t been on the job long enough to gain much practical experience before their paths crossed with Davis and Twining. As such, when Officer Gore approached Davis on the driver’s side of the Pontiac to search and cuff him, he had perhaps a day’s worth, maybe two, of formal instruction on the subject, and whatever else he had managed to teach himself in 16 short months, under his belt.
Witnesses state that when Officer Gore reached the Pontiac, he ordered Davis to place his hands on top of the vehicle and spread his feet in the CHP’s version of the “wall search” position.37 He then began to frisk Davis as the pair stood at the left rear of the Pontiac. From a tactical standpoint, this left Officer Gore in a very dangerous position. To begin with, Officer Gore knew that someone in the vehicle had threatened the Tidwells with a handgun just a short while before and, thus, had to presume that one or both of the vehicle’s occupants were still armed. Therefore, to approach and search Davis at the driver’s side of the Pontiac while Twining remained inside the vehicle left Officer Gore at risk of a possible attack from within. It would only have taken a brief moment for Twining to shoot Officer Gore through the open door or one of the windows of the Pontiac as he searched Davis, and Officer Gore, occupied with his frisk of Davis and blind to Twining’s movements inside the vehicle (because of the roof, which blocked his view), would have never seen it coming.
Although it was CHP doctrine at the time to complete the search prior to handcuffing the suspect, this provided a long window of opportunity for the suspect to initiate an attack on the officer while his hands were still free, which is exactly what Davis did when Officer Gore’s attention became focused on the gunman, Twining.38 Had Officer Gore handcuffed Davis first, then begun his search after Davis’ hands were controlled behind his back, Davis would have been less dangerous to Officer Gore and may not have been able to access his hidden gun and kill Officer Gore as he traded shots with Twining across the trunk lid of the Pontiac moments later.
The standing search position used by Officer Gore also added to the hazard. It was standard CHP procedure at the time of Newhall to use this search position for almost all encounters, including suspects in a hot stop. The position relies upon placing the suspect off balance such that he needs the support of the vehicle to stay upright and cannot take his hands off the vehicle without compromising the platform and falling. This works as long as the suspect is controlled and not given the opportunity to move his feet closer to the vehicle to reestablish his balance, or push away from the vehicle to a standing position. Unfortunately, Davis was given this opportunity as Officer Gore turned to engage Twining, and because Davis’ hands were still free, he was able to access the .38-caliber revolver he had threatened the Tidwells with and use it to murder Officer Gore at arm’s length. An alternative search position, such as the kneeling or prone positions that would later gain favor for felony stops, would have done a better job of limiting Davis’ mobility, and would have made it more difficult for him to access the weapon, turn, and engage Officer Gore before Officer Gore realized what he was doing.
The hot stop tactics taught to CHP officers relied upon the foundation of “contact and cover” procedures, an essential element of all two-man patrol. In contact and cover, the contact officer approaches the suspect(s) to interrogate, search, and cuff them as necessary, while the cover officer monitors the action and the bigger picture around them from a distance, ready to come to the aid of the contact officer as necessary.
The procedure allows the contact officer to focus his attention solely on the short-range threats in front of him and relieves him of the responsibility for monitoring the larger environment surrounding him, which may include additional threats. It also allows the contact officer to shed extra responsibilities, such as communicating with dispatch and backup officers, which are better handled by an officer who is not in the immediate proximity of the suspect.
The cover officer, by maintaining distance, enhances his ability to pick up on things like pre-assault cues that might be missed by the contact officer, whose close proximity to the suspect results in a much narrower field of focus. By virtue of having greater time and distance, the cover officer can see more, process the information more efficiently, and do a better job of evaluating information in context than can the contact officer, who is busy, “heads down,” and focused on a much smaller worldview.39
As Officer Gore, in the role of contact officer, approached the driver’s side of the Pontiac to search and cuff Davis, Officer Frago initially remained at the right front of their patrol car with the shotgun at port arms, in his proper role as the cover officer. However, this contract between the two officers would quickly break down for reasons unknown, comprising one of the greater tactical errors made by the officers during the encounter.
It’s unknown if Officer Gore summoned Officer Frago to the Pontiac for assistance or if Officer Frago made an independent decision to advance, but witnesses at the crime scene later told investigators that Officer Frago approached the passenger side of the Pontiac with the shotgun held in a port arms position across his chest as Officer Gore began to search Davis on the driver’s side. Prior to leaving his position at the fender of Unit car 78-8, Officer Frago commanded a position of tactical dominance over both Davis and Twining that stacked the odds heavily in his and Officer Gore’s favor. Even if the felons had decided to launch an attack, Officer Frago’s superior position and powerful weapon would have allowed him to dominate the fight and to summon vital backup via the nearby radio in the car. However, once he moved forward to contact Twining, that advantage was completely lost. He abandoned his cover, moved forward into the felon’s kill zone, and eliminated his ability to radio for assistance in those early days before on-body radio capabilities. Officer Gore’s backup immediately vanished, because Officer Frago was now occupied with his own close-range business and potential threats and was not available to help Officer Gore. Both officers saw their workload spike as they were forced to simultaneously deal with their suspects and monitor each other and the environment around them. Davis and Twining would soon exploit these circumstances.40
Additional tactical errors were made during Officer Frago’s approach that would provide opportunities for the felons. When Officer Frago approached the passenger side of the Pontiac, he rested the butt of the shotgun on his right hip, grasped the gun in his right hand to steady it with muzzle up in the air, and reached for the door handle with his left hand, to remove Twining from the vehicle.41 As Officer Frago reached for the door, he made himself vulnerable to getting his hand smashed and/or being knocked down by a rapidly opening door as he leaned over in an awkward, unbalanced reach for the handle. Additionally, Officer Frago placed himself in a position where he would be unable to bring either of his weapons to bear quickly on Twining. The shotgun was pointing outboard, away from the vehicle and any threats within, and its muzzle was also elevated straight up, where it would take a long time to bring down and engage a threat. Before going for his revolver, Officer Frago would have had to switch the shotgun to his left hand first (which was already busy with the door handle) or drop it on the ground to free up his gun hand for the draw. Thus, Officer Frago was not only precariously off balance, his hands were tied up and he was completely incapable of deploying either of his two firearms quickly.
None of these facts escaped Twining’s attention. Officer Frago’s posture gave Twining the opportunity he was hoping for and he took advantage of it, rapidly opening the door and firing twice at Officer Frago, killing him instantly and, thus, before he could respond with more than words. Shortly before his self-inflicted death, Twining would later tell Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies, with brutal honesty, “He got careless, so I wasted him.”42
Ambush Response
Officers Pence and Alleyn were racing to the scene as Officers Gore and Frago made their approaches to the Pontiac and were gunned down by the felons. The officers in the second unit, driving northbound and eager to back up their friends, had no idea of the mayhem that had been unleashed in the parking lot of J’s Coffee Shop. As they approached the scene along Henry Mayo Drive and The Old Road, their view of the scene was blocked by the coffee shop, parked vehicles, and the railed fence and hedges that encircled the perimeter of the parking lot. Their first clear view of the scene came as they turned from The Old Road into the driveway and came under immediate fire from the felons, who had sought refuge and cover at the front of the Pontiac as they emptied their revolvers at the arriving CHP car.
The officers had driven straight into an ambush. As the rounds began to strike their car, they were faced with their first tactical decision of the fight—stay in the kill zone or exit immediately. They chose the former.
Officer Pence brought the car to a stop alongside the other CHP unit and put it in “Park.” As he was doing so, he broadcast a call for help across the radio as they continued taking fire, giving Dispatch and backup officers their first notification that a gunfight was in progress. Next to him, Officer Alleyn retrieved the Remington shotgun from the Lektro-Lok cradle and exited the door of the vehicle to join the fight.
In approximately two minutes, they would each be dead.
Their decision to advance into the gun fight was not an easy one to make. They were suddenly thrust into a very stressful and dangerous situation and were required to make an instantaneous choice with scant information. They knew they were being fired upon, but probably did not know where the gunfire was coming from, how many people were shooting at them, what weapons were being used, what support they had, how long it would last, or any other number of important things that would have made their decision easier to make. Furthermore, they were behind the power curve, struggling with the initial stages of their own OODA loop, while their attackers were already completing their portion of the cycle and controlling the action. It is recognized that their position was not an enviable one, and they did the best they could under extremely difficult circumstances. However, they made the wrong decision.
Officers Pence and Alleyn were still mobile when they came under fire. Their vehicle was not out of commission, and they had the ability to drive away from the kill zone, which would have been the best choice.
Time spent in the ambush zone favors the attackers. Every moment that Officers Pence and Alleyn spent in the ambush zone gave their attackers another opportunity to fire at them. By flooring the accelerator and aggressively driving away from the ambush zone, Officers Pence and Alleyn would have distanced themselves from the attackers and made the felons’ task of killing the officers much more difficult. Simply put, the officers’ survival quotient would have rapidly increased with increasing distance from their attackers.
Such an action would also have given the officers time for many options. They would have had the opportunity to regroup and assess the situation, gathering important information about the number and location of the attackers and other critical intelligence. It would have given them time to call for assistance and pass along vital information as part of that call, which would have helped responding officers to be more effective. Rather than just asking for help, they could have provided critical details about the number of suspects, their descriptions, their location, warnings to approach from another direction, and other items that would have ensured a greater chance of stopping the criminals and greater levels of safety for responding backup units. It also would have allowed Officers Pence and Alleyn to communicate and create a hasty plan to reengage the suspects on terms that were more favorable to the officers. From a distance, the officers could have planned a new approach to the suspect vehicle—one that would position their vehicle in a more dominant location and make better use of cover, concealment, lighting, and available firepower.
Most importantly, it would have allowed them the opportunity to be the ones driving the OODA cycle. Instead of finding themselves three or four steps behind their opponents from the start, the officers could have reversed the situation with an unexpected move. Escaping the ambush would have interrupted the felon’s plans and forced them back to the beginning of a new OODA cycle—a cycle in which the officers were now playing the dominant role and the felons were the ones behind, forced to respond to the officer’s moves.
Some may disagree with this assertion and feel that the officers were better served by exiting their vehicle and slugging it out with the felons. They would probably refer to small unit infantry tactics that proscribe an aggressive counterattack into the ambush to break it up, rather than attempting to escape from the kill zone. They might raise the specter of the officers being wounded as they fled and might also indicate that the officers were obligated to stay in position and fight, in order to support their comrades.
These positions are not convincing, however. Small unit infantry tactics involve assumptions about unit strength, acceptable losses, lack of mobility, and volumes of firepower that are not relevant to two-man patrol cars. A more appropriate military parallel would involve modern counter-ambush procedures for military convoys, which favor maintaining mobility during an ambush and emphasize dismounting the vehicle and fighting in place only when the vehicle is disabled in the kill zone and another means of escape is unavailable.
It’s possible that the officers could have been wounded during an escape from the kill zone, but the chances of being wounded if they stayed in the ambush zone were much more certain. A fast-moving and aggressively maneuvering vehicle would have made a much more difficult target to hit than dismounted officers taking cover behind a parked vehicle. The vehicle offers the same level of structural protection whether it is moving away from the ambush zone or whether the officers are taking cover behind it in the middle of the ambush zone, but hitting the moving target is much more difficult, and an accelerating vehicle that is bearing down on you like a missile tends to make avoidance a higher priority than shooting at the occupants inside.
There is no question that Officers Pence and Alleyn wanted to assist their comrades, but in order to help them they had to first survive. As many officers will recall from their time in emergency vehicle training, “You can’t help anybody if you don’t get to the scene safely.” Fleeing the ambush zone and regrouping for a coordinated attack would have offered them a better opportunity for survival and success than dismounting in the middle of the ambush zone and beginning their fight from a position of great disadvantage.
The officers cannot be faulted for a split-second decision that, based on incomplete information, they made in a moment of extreme danger. However, this does not mean that their decision should be held up as a model for officers to follow in similar situations. While there are no absolutes, and tactics must be adjusted to fit the unique situation presented, it is generally considered that the best response for officers who drive into an ambush is to immediately drive away from the ambush if they have the capability, rather than exiting the vehicle and fighting in place.
Communications and Mutual Support
Communication and support between the officers was another area of difficulty for the embattled officers. When Officers Pence and Alleyn arrived on scene and came under fire from Davis and Twining, their car was stopped in a way that the right side of the vehicle was quite exposed to the gunfire and offered no protection for Officer Alleyn. As such, it was necessary for him to immediately leave that position and seek one that offered better cover. He found that position on the right side of the first CHP car on the scene, behind the open passenger door of that vehicle. This location offered better cover, but it also separated him from Officer Pence, dividing them on opposite sides of the two vehicles—Pence at far left, Alleyn at far right.
This made the task of communication and mutual support much more difficult, if not impossible for the officers. It was exceptionally difficult for them to talk to each other, share information, cover each other, and monitor each other’s status. They lost the significant emotional benefit of mutual support, because they were essentially operating in two parallel, but disconnected worlds on opposite sides of the CHP cruisers, fighting their own solo battles with little idea of how the other was doing in his own fight.
This was perhaps unavoidable, given the layout of the battlefield, and neither officer could be faulted for it. However, it did make life more difficult for the two officers and provides a tactical lesson worthy of consideration. Preserving this option is always beneficial, if it can be done without sacrificing some other higher survival priority.
In contrast, Davis and Twining spent large portions of the fight in close proximity to each other, sharing the vehicle as cover and working together as a team to place effective fire on their opponents. When Twining’s first 1911 pistol malfunctioned, Davis was close by and providing covering fire with the Western Field shotgun. When Twining was wounded by Officer Alleyn’s gunfire, Davis was able to suppress Officer Alleyn’s fire and force him to retreat from his position. Witnesses recalled the felons communicating with each other at certain periods during the fight. While it’s certain that the felons also spent large portions of the fight acting independently from each other without coordination, when they had the opportunities for communication and mutual support, they appeared to make good use of them. This made them more formidable opponents.
Maneuver and Mobility
As the fight developed in Newhall, Officers Pence and Alleyn fired all their rounds from static positions near the patrol cars, while their attackers continuously maneuvered around the compact battlespace, firing on the move as they ran from position to position.43 Their use of maneuver was an extremely effective tactic for the felons and bears further discussion.
Davis, wearing a yellow jacket that made him extremely visible in the lights from the Standard Station, began the fight against Officers Pence and Alleyn from a position near the front end of the Pontiac. He maneuvered around the passenger side and forward to the patrol cars, then down the path between them as Officer Alleyn engaged him with shotgun and revolver. After shooting Officer Alleyn, Davis made his way back to the Pontiac, maneuvered again towards Unit car 78-8 to engage Mr. Kness, then retreated back to the Pontiac to flee the scene. He was continuously shooting with his weapons while on the move.
Twining covered the greatest distance out of the shooters, starting from a position inside the Pontiac upon Unit 78-12’s arrival, exiting via the driver’s side, and fighting from a position near the left front of the Pontiac before he began a wide flanking movement to his right that eventually converged on Officer Pence at the left rear of Unit 78-12. After killing Officer Pence, he fled back to the Pontiac to make his escape. Like his partner Davis, Twining fired most of his shots during this phase of the battle while on the move.
While Officers Pence and Alleyn had the arguably superior positions of cover at the beginning of their fight with Davis and Twining (behind the doors of their cars, as Davis and Twining maneuvered out in the open), they were unable to place effective fire on the highly mobile suspects. The “restless” and “bobbing” suspects were just too difficult to hit under the stress of the gunfight.
Besides making themselves difficult to hit, there was an additional advantage to all the maneuvering done by the felons—it allowed them to flank their opponents and forced them to abandon cover. This is most readily seen in the wide, flanking maneuver that Twining made to get a better angle on Officer Pence. Davis also used extremely bold maneuvers to get a better angle on Officer Alleyn, as well, at the rear of Unit 78-8. Both felons used aggressive maneuvers to flush the officers out of their initial positions of cover and force them to seek less effective cover positions at the rear of their vehicles, much like a hunter would drive game out of a thicket.
It’s interesting and perhaps informative to note the actions of citizen-hero Gary Kness during the shootout. Amidst all the gunfire from the three remaining participants in the battle, Mr. Kness entered the scene from the outside, attempted and then aborted a rescue of Officer Alleyn, engaged Davis with Officer Alleyn’s weapon, and then exited the battle without a scratch, while Davis continuously fired on him. There are certainly many reasons why Mr. Kness avoided injury, but the fact that he was continuously moving while on the battlefield was certainly preeminent among them and constitutes a powerful lesson for today’s warriors.
“All cover is temporary.” -Unknown
When Officer Gore brought Unit 78-8 to a stop behind Davis and Twining’s Pontiac, it was angled slightly away and to the left, such that Officer Gore was able to take a good position of cover at the left front fender of the car. Officer Frago, however, took a completely exposed position at the right front fender of the vehicle, just aft of the headlight. If Davis and Twining had decided to bail out of the vehicle shooting, Officer Frago’s lack of cover could have been fatal.
In any event, Officer Gore left his position of cover to advance on the vehicle after Davis was extracted by voice commands, with Officer Frago following up shortly thereafter on the passenger’s side. The errors made in contact and cover procedures have been previously addressed, but it’s pertinent to note that, before he advanced, Officer Gore was actually in the better position to serve as the cover officer, while Officer Frago advanced to make contact. Officer Frago’s possession with the shotgun would have made the contact officer role difficult, but if he had passed the long arm to Officer Gore and left him in place, their tactical situation would have been far superior.
When Officers Pence and Alleyn arrived on scene, they came under fire immediately and took positions of cover as soon as they bailed out of their vehicle, Officer Pence behind the open driver’s door of Unit 78-12, and Officer Alleyn behind the open passenger side door of the adjacent 78-8 vehicle. These were the best and most accessible positions available to them and made good tactical sense, given their limited options. When their weapons ran dry however, each officer sought refuge at the rear of their respective vehicles—Officer Pence to the left rear of Unit 78-12 to reload his revolver, and Officer Alleyn to the left rear of Unit 78-8 to engage Twining with his revolver, now that the shotgun was empty. These fallback positions were not as defensible and created problems for the officers.
In Officer Alleyn’s case, he attempted to engage Davis over the trunk of Unit 78-8 with his revolver and was immediately shot in the exposed upper chest and face with a load of buckshot. Attempting to hold himself up on the trunk of the car, Officer Alleyn was shot a second time. Officer Alleyn’s choice to rise up and shoot over the top of 78-8 was probably driven by the poor visibility his position offered (he was probably having trouble locating Davis with the car blocking his view), but the choice also made him a much larger target for Davis than if he had stayed low and peered around the side or bumper of the vehicle and fired from that low barricade position.
Officer Pence’s position at the left rear of 78-12 fared him no better. He took a kneeling position close to the left rear quarter panel that would have provided some protection if Twining had still been near the front of the Pontiac, but gave him no cover after Twining flanked his position. So the position left him exposed to Twining’s fire, which wounded Officer Pence horribly with gunshots to both legs, including a compound fracture on one.
Then, with Officer Pence anchored by his wounds and struggling to finish his reload, Twining completed his flanking movement and shot him twice in the lower chest, then closed the distance to deliver an execution style shot to the back of the downed officer’s head.
Had Officer Pence taken a position of cover that allowed him more protection and visibility (perhaps by giving himself some standoff distance from the rear of the car), it’s possible he might he have frustrated Twining’s flanking movement or at least recognized it in time to move to a better position. It’s possible he might have avoided getting hit by Twining’s shots long enough to complete his reload and get back in the fight. It’s impossible to know with any certainty, but a better position of cover could only have helped him in his fight for survival, and it’s a tactical lesson of great importance for modern day officers.