CHP Still Carries Memory of Bloody Day 20 Years Ago

It was the bloodiest tragedy in the history of the California Highway Patrol, a savage and senseless episode that left the patrol shaken and the families of four slain officers shattered.

Under gloomy skies Friday afternoon, officers and civilians gathered outside the CHP office in Newhall to mark the 20th anniversary of the day rookie officers Walter C. Frago, Roger D. Gore, James E. Pence Jr. and George M. Alleyn were gunned down by two ex-convicts.

“It shattered lives, it shattered families, it shattered a department’s self-esteem,” said Assistant Chief Richard Noonan.

The Newhall killings prompted the CHP to revamp its training procedures and tactics, and the events of that bloody night are hammered into the minds of aspiring officers in the patrol’s training academy.

“It had a profound effect” on training, said Sam Haynes, a CHP spokesman in Sacramento. “It was almost a watershed experience.”

Some of the relatives of the dead officers said that, despite the never-ending hurt, they have managed to restore a semblance of peace to their lives. Others never recovered.

“My dad committed suicide in the back yard,” said Tim Gore, who was 16 when his brother was killed. His father, Max Gore, who died three years ago, was never able to enjoy life the way he had in the past when he and Roger Gore would go fishing and hunting outside Snelling, a town of 300 people not far from Merced.

“My dad never did (recover). . . . That really took a toll on him,” said Tim Gore, who still lives in Snelling.

At Friday’s ceremony, a trumpeter played taps as Officer Thomas Dailey, the only CHP officer remaining at the Newhall station who knew the slain men, placed a wreath of red, white and pink carnations at the foot of a stone marker and plaque outside the station.

“We remember our officers . . . and in so doing speak of honor and dedication,” Noonan said.

“No one is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten,” he said.

According to the CHP, the incident began just before midnight on April 5, 1970, when two former prison inmates, Jack Twinning, 35, and Bobby Augusta Davis, 29, almost collided with another car while making a U-turn on Interstate 5 near Gorman.

The pair exchanged words with the other motorist and brandished guns at the startled driver before driving off.

The motorist reported the incident to the CHP and Gore and Frago, both 23, went to investigate.

The two officers spotted Davis and Twinning in a car parked outside J’s Coffee Shop on what is now Magic Mountain Parkway west of the freeway. As they approached the car, Frago was shot twice in the chest with a .357 magnum. Gore was killed with two more gunshots.

Pence and Alleyn soon arrived and a gun battle ensued as horrified diners watched from the coffee shop. Within minutes, the four officers lay dead on the pavement and Twinning and Davis ran off into the night.

“These two individuals fled into the night like cowards,” Noonan said.

More than 200 officers descended on the valley for a manhunt that lasted nine hours. Twinning later broke into a house not far from the Newhall CHP station and briefly held a man hostage. When officers stormed the house with tear gas, Twinning “committed suicide by placing the muzzle of (a) shotgun under his chin and discharging the weapon,” according to the CHP.

Davis was later captured. Fran Lewis, a retired CHP dispatcher, recalled Friday seeing the chilling expression on Davis’ face as he was driven up to the station.

“I’ll always remember seeing him there smiling,” Lewis said.

Davis also smiled in court when he was convicted of murder, according to newspaper accounts. He was sentenced to die in the gas chamber but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when California’s death penalty was struck down as unconstitutional in 1972. Davis, 49, is now at the state prison in Corcoran.