First Gunfight
The town of Wirt in Carter County, also known as Ragtown, was particularly violent. One day, walking foot patrol Ballew saw customers rushing headlong out of a restaurant and, drawing one of the two Colt .45 revolvers he then carried, moved cautiously forward. He found an armed robbery in progress, and one perpetrator, Pete Bynum, 29, ambushed him. A bullet creased Ballew’s abdomen, and he rapidly returned fire, putting a mortally wounded Bynum down for the count. Unfortunately, one of the rookie deputy’s bullets — a miss or a pass-through, we don’t know which — pierced a wall and struck an unseen bystander in the abdomen. Tragically, that wound also proved fatal.
His next shooting took place in 1916. One Arch Campbell, an ex-cop in a personal downward spiral, was terrorizing a barber shop with his revolver. When Ballew and other deputies responded, Campbell opened fire on them, and one of his bullets hit Ballew in the left shoulder and went through the left lung and out his right side. Undaunted, the wounded deputy joined his two brother officers in generating a hail of return fire that killed Campbell. Ballew fully recovered.
Later in the year, Ballew showed early signs of poor anger management when he slapped a judge around on a public street, which cost him his badge for a while. Reinstated, he was assigned to shut down an illegal business belonging to one Steve Talkington, who was out on bond awaiting trial on a murder charge. The angry Talkington yelled to one of his employees, “Get my other gun!” and then turned on Ballew with a semiautomatic pistol in his hand. The deputy’s last two incidents had painfully taught him not to be the last to fire, and he pumped four .45 slugs into Talkington before the latter could shoot. The man collapsed, dying, his spinal cord cut in half: All of Ballew’s bullets had struck home.
1918 found Ballew up against one Rufus Highnote who, nearing 60 years of age, claimed to be something of a freelance crime-fighter and bounty hunter who had killed 20 men. At one point, he was, in fact, a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Highnote was reported to have terrorized at least three citizens at gunpoint, and the sheriff sent Ballew to relieve him of badge and gun. Biographer Elmer McInnes tells us what happened next:
“Highnote suddenly spun around, with his left hand drawing a revolver from one of his two holsters strapped around his waist. Alertly, Ballew crowded close to Highnote, grabbing the man’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger. The shot whizzed past Ballew’s head. Ballew swiftly drew his own revolver as Highnote came up with another cocked .45 in his right hand. Ballew’s gun came into play first as he pumped three bullets into Highnote’s body. The doomed man was dead before he hit the ground. W.A. Richards, one of the first men on the scene following the shooting, reported seeing three revolvers on the dead man.
1919 brought what may have been the most controversial shooting of Ballew’s career. One Dow Braziel, a former bootlegger who had managed to become a deputy U.S. Marshal, was a skilled gunman who had killed at least one adversary in a face-to-face quick-draw contest. He had orchestrated a raid that went badly and resulted in the death of a young policeman Ballew had liked, and for that reason, among others, he and Braziel hated each other. On the day in question, Ballew entered a restaurant of which Braziel was part owner, accompanied by Chief of Police Lesley Segler. As they came through the door, Braziel fired two shots at them, one of which grazed the chief. Ballew drew and emptied his revolver into Braziel, who fell dead. Reporters noted a 100% hit ratio: six hits for six shots, according to some reports, and five out of five, according to others. Given Ballew’s preference for the Colt single action, normally carried with an empty chamber, the latter seems more likely. It was the third time he had shot a man who carried, or formerly carried, a badge.
That same year, Ballew went up against a tough little armed robbery suspect named Rusty Mills. Sheriff Garrett had pulled over an automobile containing Mills and his partner in crime, Charles Thomas. Thomas jumped Garrett, each of those two going for his own gun and simultaneously grabbing the other man’s weapon. They went to the ground, struggling. Mills drew a semiautomatic pistol and circled around them, trying to get an angle to shoot the sheriff without hitting his partner, just as Ballew pulled up in his own vehicle behind them. Mills turned toward Ballew and fired two shots at him.
Mills missed.
Ballew didn’t. He fired a single shot from his revolver, striking Mills in the brain and killing him instantly. He then rushed forward to end the chief’s deadly struggle with Thomas, who by now had fired four shots, all amazingly missing the sheriff, who shouted at Ballew to shoot.
The deputy obliged. He carefully put a .45 slug into Thomas’ face, smashing the outlaw’s jaw. Thomas rolled off the sheriff and fired twice from his downed position; both Garrett and Ballew opened up on him, nailing the would-be cop-killer to the ground and stopping when he dropped his gun. Though riddled with police bullets, Thomas survived to face trial.
1919 was a gunsmoke year for Ballew, including his final fatal shooting. A man named Johnnie Pierce had shot a local lawman named Jake Williams and, before long was captured by Oklahoma City police. Ballew and a still-recovering Williams were sent by train to extradite him. At a stop, Pierce broke and ran. Ballew and William both opened fire, and the running man was brought down by a bullet through the neck that proved fatal.
Read the full article here