It was the 4 1/2 minutes that forever changed the California Highway Patrol.
Thirty-eight years ago today, four CHP officers died in a fierce gunfight with a pair of heavily armed motorists outside a Valencia coffee shop after a seemingly routine traffic stop.
On Friday, a five-mile stretch of Interstate 5 in Santa Clarita that runs past the shooting scene was renamed in honor of the dead officers as surviving family members and witnesses recalled what generations of CHP officers know as the "Newhall Incident."
Patrol officials said the rampage permanently changed the agency from a corps of highway helpers to hard-core cops. It also prompted police departments across the country to adopt tough procedures for cautiously pulling over cars and carefully taking suspects into custody.
Grandchildren of the slain patrol officers helped unveil one of the large signs that will proclaim the freeway as the "CHP Officers James E. Pence, Jr., Roger D. Gore, Walter C. Frago, George M. Alleyn Memorial Highway."
During the unveiling ceremony a few miles from the site of the shootout on April 5, 1970, state and local leaders proclaimed the four slain officers heroes. And pointing into the crowd of about 300, they singled out Palmdale resident Gary Kness and bestowed the same label on him.
Kness was a passerby who ran toward the gun battle as shots were still being fired. He tried to drag the mortally wounded Alleyn out of the line of fire. When one of the two assailants began firing at him, he grabbed Alleyn's service revolver and shot back, wounding the attacker.
Now 69, Kness was hugged by Alleyn's relatives. A long line of CHP officers and other law enforcement authorities formed to shake his hand. "I've always heard of you. I've wanted to meet you all my life," said retired San Fernando Police Officer Fred Iversen.
Kness shrugged off the hero designation.
"I was driving to work as a computer operator when I turned the corner on the Old Road and saw the gunfire," he told Iversen. "I saw two CHP cars and a red car. I always say my brain said to get out of the way, but my feet ran the wrong way."
As he struggled to pull the 24-year-old Alleyn to safety by his service belt, Kness grabbed a CHP shotgun lying on the ground and aimed it at one of the gunmen. The shotgun was empty, however.
