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

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38. Officer Pence’s reload has been the subject of much discussion and debate. It has been widely reported that Officer Pence reflexively pocketed his spent brass as he had been conditioned to do in range training at the CHP Academy. It has been reported that the spent brass was found in his pants pocket during the post-mortem examination, and this supposed “fact” has been used to support a multitude of theories about the quality of CHP training and Officer Pence’s presence of mind during the fight.

It is categorically false that Officer Pence pocketed the spent .357 Magnum brass during the gunfight. His pile of spent .357 brass, marked by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department evidence tag JHC #18, was found on the ground abeam the rear door on the driver’s side of the vehicle, right where Officer Pence was reloading his weapon before he was murdered. Evidence photos show the brass in that location, and the witness testimony of retired CHP Sergeant (then, Officer) Harry Ingold, who checked on Officer Pence and marked the spot he had fallen in the immediate moments after the fight, supports it. Sergeant Ingold specifically recalls seeing the spent brass on the ground in that location; the same location reported by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Criminalist Jack H. Clark when he tagged it “found by side of vehicle #2” and had it photographed as evidence item #18 (JHC #18), hours later.