Читать книгу Newhall Shooting - A Tactical Analysis. An inside look at the most tragic and influential police gunfight of the modern era. онлайн

53 страница из 97

When the Pontiac was spotted, CHP Officer Tolliver Miller cautiously approached the passenger side of the vehicle to clear it for suspects, with Officer Robinson close behind, shotgun at the ready. As they approached the vehicle, they heard Officer Holmes make his “11-44” call to dispatch via the external speakers on each CHP unit at the scene. The officers realized for the first time that their brothers had been killed by the men they were hunting; the men who could still be in the Pontiac they were now approaching. Crouching down below the level of the window, Officer Miller steadied himself with his left hand on the car and slowly raised up to peer through the passenger side window with his revolver in his right hand, its muzzle clearing the bottom edge of the window at the same time as his eyes.⁴⁸

The car was empty.

In their haste to escape, the felons had chosen a dead-end road that ended with a heavy rail fence at the Santa Clara River. With nowhere else to go, they bailed out of the vehicle on foot, moving towards a dry wash to the north that ran roughly along an east/west axis. The pair split up when Twining returned to the vehicle to get additional weapons, grabbing the shotgun that had been taken from Officer Frago and the revolver that had been taken from Officer Gore. Davis followed the wash to the northeast across the freeway to San Francisquito Canyon, while Twining moved to the southwest, across The Old Road and an open field (now Magic Mountain amusement park), and then south along the foothills that paralleled the highway. (Refer again to ssss1.)⁴⁹