 It is the closing minutes of an April in 1970 evening in California and two men are being pulled over in their red Pontiac along the Old Road and Henry Mayo Drive in Valencia, California. The traffic stop is in connection with an earlier road rage incident, what would be considered a misdemeanor offence, but this pullover would result in one of the bloodiest days in California law enforcement history and in just five minutes, four people would be dead. Today I'm covering the Newhall incident and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Two Men Our story starts with two men renting an apartment in Long Beach, California. Nothing out of the ordinary, friends share apartments to keep down the cost of living. But these two men had met somewhere slightly different than most. Prison. These two new flatmates were Jack Wright Twinning and Bobby Augusta Davis. Both had been in and out of prison for most of their lives. After their original meeting in prison, the duo met up in Houston, Texas and set out for California. The year was 1969 and both men had failed to re-enter society with jobs and as such, they sought out to continue their life of crime. A half an hour drive away from their apartment in Long Beach was Santa Anita Park. The two men, whilst there, had noticed an armoured money car. These seemingly tough targets filled with thousands of dollars were to these two at least attempting a juicy target. But how to successfully defeat such a vehicle? Well the two men had seen something on their journey to California, a construction site that had been using explosives to clear land. Twinning and Davis thought that if they had explosives, then they would be able to blow the doors off the armoured car and get that sweet, sweet cash inside. You know as I write this, this kind of makes me think that they had actually got the idea from the Italian job. Anyways, the two set out on the 5th of April 1970 to procure some explosives. Davis dropped off Twinning to make his way to the construction site and Davis would meet him later on. The car the two had was a red 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix. And oh boy, this vehicle was loaded up with some guns. The two men had a Smith & Wesson Model 39, 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a 6-inch Colt Python 357 magnum revolver, two snub-nosed Colt Detective Special 38 caliber revolvers, a Model 1903 Springfield bolt action, a Sawanoff 12 gauge shotgun, a Remington Model 5 72.22 caliber pump action rifle and a .44 Magnum Ruger Model 44 semi-automatic carbine. Now later on in the evening, Davis would set off the chain of events that would result in a lot of deaths and his own incarceration. When driving along Interstate 5, Davis decided to do an illegal U-turn. This involved him crossing across the highway medium. Pretty dodgy, but the manoeuvre also nearly caused a crash with another car. Driven by Ivory Jack Tidewell, with his wife Viola Bernice White as a passenger. Some horn honking and arguing between the two drivers ensued, which resulted in both cars coming to a stop on the highway. An argument broke out between the two drivers. Davis pulled out a gun and threatened Tidewell. Thinking on his feet, the innocent motorist convinced Davis that the police were in the area and the armed assailant fled in his car. Tidewell and his wife then immediately drove to near his phone box to report the incident, in doing so giving the description of the crazy driver and his car. This incident happened at roughly 11.20 in the evening and the call was put out to all California highway patrol vehicles in the area to pull over a red Pontiac to discuss the dangerous driving and gun wieldiness of its driver. At some point, over the next 20 minutes or so, Davis had collected twinning and the two continued their drive, which would involve passing a CHP patrol car manned by officers Walt Frago and Roger Gore. They lit up the lights and followed the red Pontiac. It pulled off the freeway at the exit for Henry Mayo Drive, after which it pulled into a car park next to a Jay's coffee shop adjacent to a standard gas station. Twinning and Davis at this point decided that they were not going to submit to the police and try their luck shooting their way out. The two officers followed in a 1969 Dodge Parola patrol car. Two more officers in another patrol car were not far away and were ready to jump in if backup was needed. Clearly officers Frago and Roger Gore were not prepared for what was about to unfold as they pulled in behind that red Pontiac. The police car pulled up to the rear of the Pontiac and the officers used their car as a cover. The officers used the spotlight on their car to light up the suspects, illuminating Davis and twinning. The order to leave the vehicle with their hands up was shouted three times. Davis, the driver, complied. He got out of the Pontiac and after another order to raise his arms from Gore put both arms in the air. The next order was to spread his legs and put his hands on the car's rear fender. Davis also did this. With one suspect seemingly compliant and Frago with his shotgun raised in the air or the stock of his hip approached Twinning, who was still in the passenger seat and their passenger door was still closed. As Frago went to open the door, Twinning flung opened the car door with a revolver in his hand. Frago shouted hold it and lowered the shotgun but Twinning had the drop and fatally shot Officer Frago. As soon as Officer Frago hit the floor, Twinning jumped out of the passenger seat and started shooting at Gore across the rear of the Pontiac. Gore turned and shot back, missing Twinning hitting the Pontiac and a Mustang parked near the coffee shop. Davis used this distraction to pull a two inch revolver from his belt. In an instant he fired two shots, almost point blank at Gore, killing him instantly. Two officers were now dead. Officer James Pence and George Allen pulled up in their dodge patrol car alongside Gore and Frago's vehicle. As soon as the car stopped, both officers were met with gunfire from both assailants. The revolvers both Davis and Twinning had were now out of ammo and retreated back to their car to retrieve some more of the guns that they had. Davis grabbed out a sorenoff 12 gauge shotgun. Twinning pulled out a 1911 pistol. Twinning fired one shot from this but it jammed. He discarded it and grabbed another from the car. Pence and Allen radioed into CHP that shots had been fired and officers were down. Allen emerged and moved to the right hand side of the two patrol cars and emptied his Remington model 870 shotgun at the Pontiac. He then retreated back behind and in between the patrol cars. He pulled his service revolver and emptied it into the suspect's car. As to this volley, only a superficial wound was received by Twinning. Davis returned fire with his shotgun, fatally killing Allen. He then made his way back to the Pontiac, picked up Frago's shotgun and after trying to operate it, accidentally discharged it into the air. This was then discarded and Davis took the downed officer's service revolver. Now every story needs a mad lad and this would come from a passerby, Gary Dean Ness, H-31 and a former US Marine. He saw the gunfight between the CHP and the suspects. After Allen was downed, rather than running away, Ness thought I'll have some of that and charged him behind the patrol cars in an attempt to drag Allen's body to safety. Ness, upon not being able to drag Allen, picked up the CHP shotgun and tried to return fire at Davis. But Ness was unaware the shotgun was empty. Next Ness, under fire from Davis, took Allen's revolver and fired a single shot, lodging a fragment into Davis's chest. The revolver now too was empty. Meanwhile, Officer Pence's revolver was also empty. He knelt down to reload behind his patrol car. Twinning flanked him by running out from behind the left side of the Pontiac, firing four shots at the officer, hitting Pence in the chest and in both legs, sending him to the ground. Pence on the ground was still frantically trying to reload his revolver. At the time, officers were not issued with quick reloaders and as such he had to load one round at a time. In the absolute pain and confusion of the situation, Pence didn't notice Twinning approaching. At point blank he said, I've got you now and fired two shots into the back of Pence's head. Seeing this, Ness retreated and sought cover in a ditch. A third police car approached the scene and Ness ran up to the vehicle. The car was carrying Sergeant Harry Ingold and officers Roger Palmer, Ed Holmes and Richard Robinson. More firing erupted and Twinning and Davis fled into the night, taking with them several guns and dispersed into two different directions. Meanwhile, the police scoured the area for the two and began to piece together the shootout. The empty Pontiac was approached and searched, but both men had slipped away into the night. But our story isn't over yet. Davis stumbled about in the night and at roughly 3.25 am came across a camper parked up with 40-old Daniel James Schwartz inside. A gunfight ensued between Schwartz and Davis, with Schwartz firing his Lee-Enfield rifle. Both men ran out of bullets and Davis overpowered Schwartz, hitting him with his pistol. With the owner subdued, Davis fled in the camper. Some time later, Schwartz managed to report the theft to the police. A couple of hours later, he was pulled over and Davis now out of ammunition, surrendered to the police. He was claiming he was a hitchhiker that had only stolen the camper and was in fact just an innocent bystander to the police slaying earlier on in the evening, stating he was just a passenger, not the driver of the Pontiac. But this was obviously all rubbish, but we'll come back to him in a little bit. Now, Twinning was still on the loose, the hostage. Twinning fled the scene across US-99 and covered roughly 3 miles. Eventually reaching Lyons Avenue, he broke into the house of Glenn S. Hogue, and in the chaos, Twinning took Glenn hostage, but his wife and son thankfully escaped, alerting the police and doing so. This was around 4.30 in the morning. Police quickly surrounded the house and a standoff ensued. A police negotiator would chat to the suspect over the telephone and during the conversations, he would brag about the death of Frago by saying his mistake was carrying his gun at port. He got careless so I wasted him. The police issued an ultimatum at 9am. Twinning released his hostage and tear gas was thrown into the house. As the police entered, a single shotgun blast rang out. The suspect had taken the easy way out. Aftermath So back to Davis, his story was about as believable as the use of a chocolate teat pot, and it was quickly found out that he was one of the two men who committed the massacre. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of the four CHP officers, but luckily, or not, Davis' sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole. This was after the US Supreme Court ruling on Furman v Georgia, where the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional. He would last until 16th August 2009, when he would also take the easy way out. The shootout would be dissected as to how four police were killed in just five minutes. Well, there was one startling similarity. All men had under two years service and all were between the ages of 23 and 24. None had ballistic vests, but although not standard issue, three of the men would have likely survived their wounds if they had been issued them. Speed of reloading was also an issue, as well as their pistols being different from which they had been trained on. As a result, the CHP standardised their weaponry and training. The event would help push forward better training procedures in police stops, especially when dealing with armed individuals. And as such, I'm going to give this tragedy a legacy rating of a seven. I'd like to thank my Patreons and YouTube members for your financial support, and the rest of you for tuning in every week to watch your weekly dose of me talking. I have a second channel, called Made By John. I also have an Instagram and Twitter, if you want to see other random pictures I put out. And all that's left to say is, thank you for watching, and Mr Music, play us out please.