The Newhall Incident

[HoMa506]

Since nothing has been posted today about this I thought I bring it up in remembrance to the 4 CHP Officers who lost their lives on this day in 1970.

Almost everybody has gone to a semi-auto pistol as a duty gun but back in the day we all had revolvers we were told a story. A story I just read about the empty shell casings is NOT true.

In case you didn't know either you can read about "Setting the Record Straight on the Newhall Incident"...

http://www.policeone.com/Officer-Safety/articles/5504658-Setting-the-record-straight-on-the-Newhall-Incident/

[Che762x39]

Almost everybody has gone to a semi-auto pistol as a duty gun but back in the day we all had revolvers we were told a story. A story I just read about the empty shell casings is NOT true.

Even into the early 1980s I think rangemasters told that story so recruits don't empty their revolver cylinder into their hand. I recall seeing recruits do that back then. Recruits who did not have a military background thought, 'why pick up empty cases when you can dump them into your hand?'

[Zedrek]

I had a PC832 class in 1998 and we were told the same thing about letting empties drop to the ground or more appropriately, let your magazines drop to the ground. I didn't know about the brass in the pockets though. Ours was that they had the brass in their hand looking for the brass can. Thanks for the link.

[Ron-Solo]

There was another shooting around the same time where one of the officers had brass in his pockets. Over the years, the stories got crossed, and the urban legend grew from there....

[The Shadow]

The big emphasis when I went through the academy was the "seal" that CHP had on their shotguns. If an officer broke the seal, they had to right a report as to why the seal was broke.

According to information we were given back then, one of the shotguns was removed from the unit, but the seal was unbroken. Because of this, CHP removed those seals from their shotguns.

[Ron-Solo]

The big emphasis when I went through the academy was the "seal" that CHP had on their shotguns. If an officer broke the seal, they had to right a report as to why the seal was broke.

According to information we were given back then, one of the shotguns was removed from the unit, but the seal was unbroken. Because of this, CHP removed those seals from their shotguns.

Yep, and I worked for an agency that still had this stupid practice in 1977. Seven years after the tragic event, stupid practices still existed.

[diverwcw]

Here here

The big emphasis when I went through the academy was the "seal" that CHP had on their shotguns. If an officer broke the seal, they had to right a report as to why the seal was broke.

According to information we were given back then, one of the shotguns was removed from the unit, but the seal was unbroken. Because of this, CHP removed those seals from their shotguns.

I also worked for an agency back in the day that had "Integrity Seals." The chief just didn't want shotguns in the car and he found every reason to keep them from us.

[The Shadow]

Yep, and I worked for an agency that still had this stupid practice in 1977. Seven years after the tragic event, stupid practices still existed.

I went through the academy in '81 and so I thought the seals were a thing of the past when I went through. I was a police explorer in '71 and the agency that sponsored us didn't have seals on their shotguns so I had no idea the practice existed until I learned about the Newhall incident.

Having been a Military Policeman, and dealing with the ridiculous practices of the army, I thought I saw and heard it all until I heard about the seals on shotguns. To me, that beat all of the Army's practices.

[loopsb]

Our rangemaster told us about the shell casings in the pocket at my academy in 2006......the urban legend lives on.

[john67elco]

Wow I didn't know this I always thought he had the in his pocket

[RDT72]

Our rangemaster told us about the shell casings in the pocket at my academy in 2006......the urban legend lives on.

^ Same here, Fresno Police Academy 2004... I still believed it until I just read this thread, good article it's nice to clear this up.

[Ron-Solo]

Although the urban legend lives on, in this case I think it is good, because it reinforces an important message.

Train like you will fight. When the fecal matter hits the wind device, you will revert to instinct and your training. In the shootings I was involved in, training kicked in each time. My actions from start to finish we're exactly as trained.

[Sailormilan2]

During my academy training in 1979, my Department brought in several officers who were shooting survivors to talk to the class.
One of the officers said that after he was shot, he emptied his revolver at the suspect, and reloaded to do it again. The problem was, he was down, shot. He dumped the empties into his hand(as he had during training), then dumped he ammo into the same hand from his dump pouch. He then reloaded with one live round and one fired case. He got off one round, and clicked on the empty. By that time, the suspect who was also shot, had managed to crawl around the corner of the house so the officer couldn't get another shot off, even if he had been able.

[OLDLEORET]

The urban legend at the time was that the seals on the shotguns were put there because some CHP officers assigned to the San Francisco office were shooting sea gull on Treasure Island with the shotguns. I was assigned to the SF office, b ut I never shot at sea gulls with a department shotgun, or know anyone who did. But that was the rumor

[TRICKSTER]

We had a Captain institute a policy that required us to write a memo every time we unholstered our weapon. After we all started submitting memos daily stating.
On ______ (date and time) I unholstered my off duty weapon and put it in my gun locker, at _______ (date and time) I unholstered my duty weapon and put it in my gun locker, at_______(date and time) I unholstered my duty weapon and put it in the jails gun locker.

It didn't take long for that stupid rule to go away.