Bonnie and Clyde

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Henry Bowman

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Some time ago, I saw a documentary on Bonnie and Clyde, including the way they finally were "apprehended." It included a filmed reinaction that was made soon after the event. Basically, the authorities got word that they would be travelling along a certain road at a certain time and set up an ambush of overwelming firepower. Turned them and their car into swiss cheese without warning and without any immediate threat from them. Lots of ammo and MG's were found in the car (looked like some THR's going to a shoot!).

Nobody seemed upset about their "civil rights" being violated and no mention was made that by todays standards (applying the same Constitution) it would be considered an outrage.

Anyone else ever think about this or have any other information about the public reaction then and how it would compare to today?
 
That was pretty commonplace back in those days. If they were after a guy and he was running across a field, they'd just let loose. It was certainly efficient.

But yeah, there'd be a good bit of public outcry if the same were to happen today.
 
The FBI had a FOIA site with the official writeup. My bookmark has been disconnected. Just do a Google.
 
IIRC, when asked why they didn't give the duo a chance to surrender, the Texas Ranger leading the group stated that Barrow was just too good with his firearms. He said it just wasn't worth the risk that some of his men might be killed.
 
It is VERY interesting to talk to "old codgers" who lived in those times (20
s & 30's and in some places through the 50's). Times were tough and hard. People were poor. America was mostly very rural and neighbors were few and far between. People were self sufficient, tough and hard or they did not survive.

The way to 'get things done' was the most direct, quickest, most efficient and most conclusive way possible. Usually that did not include calling in help as help was too far to be called and too slow to get there in any case. In the vernacular of Redneck TV, they just wanted to 'get 'er done!' They had no qualms about being 'PC' as they did not know what that was and would not have cared if they did.

Talk to some of those oldsters who survived those tough, hard times and you will hear stories of how they did things. I have talked to several of those folks and heard several of those 'get 'er done' stories. Impressive to say the least.
 
It seems to me that when someone has killed multiple police officers during attempts to apprehend them, a "shoot on sight" order is not unreasonable.
 
The car was riddled, but it still ran. The manufacturer (Ford or Chevy?) bought it and put it on a tour of dealerships across the country. My Dad was just out of high school and got to drive it from a flatcar to the dealership for which he worked. The total drive was about half a block, but it was still a bid deal to drive it. I remember him saying that it was just shot to pieces and they couldn't figure out how the police had managed to avoid the engine and blow the rest of it apart.
 
Thankfully you don't see too many outlaws as well armed and lethal as Clyde Barrow and his gang. We have some lethal criminals, and some well armed ones. But very rarely are criminals both. Throw in some sociopathic cold bloodedness, add an excellent knowledge of firearms and marksmanship and you have Clyde Barrow. Add even more ruthlessness and you have Bonnie

I'd say, given their track record, that they were perfectly justified in killing both execution style. They'd do the same thing today, though they'd have ninja guys in body armor do it by the book rather than set up an ambush with hunting rifles. Bonnie and Clyde very, very different from the Sillywood version. When they ran across a cop they didn't launch into a big to-do about how they were really misunderstood, or how society was to blame. They just blew the poor guys' head off and took his revolver. No warning, no second thoughts. When ordinary sidearms were insufficient they made an arsenal of whipit guns and BAR's that would overpower even a modern SWAT team. And when they opened up they didn't spray bullets into windows. They slaughtered people.

Thankfully such animals are rare even in today's mixed-up world.
 
The history channel had a sgment the guns of gangsters a few years back and covered that pretty good . I taped it and watch it once in a while .
They really tore those people up .Deserved it very much looked like too.
 
pparker said:
The car was riddled, but it still ran. The manufacturer (Ford or Chevy?) bought it and put it on a tour of dealerships across the country. My Dad was just out of high school and got to drive it from a flatcar to the dealership for which he worked. The total drive was about half a block, but it was still a bid deal to drive it. I remember him saying that it was just shot to pieces and they couldn't figure out how the police had managed to avoid the engine and blow the rest of it apart.
Click to expand...

My dad remembers it a tad differently. According to him there were a number of purported Bonnie & Clyde cars touring, all claiming to be the original. He saw one. A casino on I-15 at the NV/CA line has one on display now. It is shot to doll rags but is it THE one? Who knows? :rolleyes:
 
My dad talked about having seen "The Car" when it was on tour. First I've heard that there may have been several cars touring. Don't doubt it though.

Critter is right - times were hard, people were poor, and had a h**l of a time scratching out a living. A lot of the outlaws had an almost "folk hero" aura because they robbed banks not people :confused: People could not make the mortgage payments on their homes/farms, the banks foreclosed, therefore the banks were the bad guys. Anyway, Dad was not outraged that B&C were ambushed the way they were, but he did think it unfair.

Jim
 
"A casino on I-15 at the NV/CA line has one on display now."

It used to be at Whiskey Pete's Casino in Stateline, Nevada.
It is now in the outlet mall in Primm Nevada (same town, renamed: actually the "town" is three casinos and a convienience store that sells Lotto tickets located on I-15 just over the California/Nevada state line about 40 miles south of Las Vegas).
I always suspected that even if it is THE car, it has been shot a few more times to enhance it's personality.
 
I saw "the car" in a carnival in Wyoming in the 40's

I have also heard the old timers talk about the times they lived in. They were different than today. I knew people on both sides of the law at the turn of the last century when I was a kid, and listened to their stories. Both sides said you did what you had to do, and if you got caught, you paid the price.
They did what they had to do to "get things done" with what they had available to them.

I was a LEO in the 60's & 70's, and we did things back then to "get things done" that would get us sued out of our socks today. We served our community with dedication, compassion, humor, and sometimes with force, but I think justice was served and we created a deterrent.

Then Enforcement was taken out of the job description of police officers. They became observers and reporters. Justice was turned over to lawyers and things went to hell... :D
 
I am a pretty big Bonnie and Clyde buff. (30's gangster stuff in general. Not so much the Mafia stuff, more the Hunting them down gunfight stuff. Call me morbid...)

Keep in mind that the officers were shooting at the car primarily with BARs as well. The car was hit 117 times, I think. Bonnie was hit 23 times (and she would've turned 23 on her next birthday...spooky) and clyde was hit 32 or 36 or something.

*tinfoil hat time* There is a theory that one of the officers ran up to the car and shot clyde in the head. Bonnie just sat there, probably in shock. Supposedly she meekly surrendered. Apparantly there was a movie camera running during this time. The rumor goes that the cops decided F&#$ it, and lit her up. The movie camera footage has never surfaced, obviously. But, alot of 'experts' in photography insist that the photos of the aftermath aren't stills, but are frames from a film.... *Old Man ripley's voice* Believe it...or Not!

But, like any good story, there are a few different versions of it floating around.

But, the historical fact is that the duo did get ambushed and 'Lit up like an ol' Xmas tree'.

Dillinger was another good example of an Ambush/Execution. Can't say I blame the cops for treating these criminals the way they did though...
 
My Dad grew up in and around Port Huron Michigan, where Herbert Youngblood was gunned down- Herbert Youngblood was in jail at Crown Point Indiana for murder, and escaped with John Dillinger in 1933- the story goes that the local police were informed that Youngblood was in town- on March 16 1934, just before my dad turned 14 years old, a gun battle ensued with the killing of one of the undersherifs and with Youngblood being hit several times but not dying outright- I don't remember where my dad said the wounded Youngblood was taken, but as he begged for his life he was allowed to pass from this world without any attempt to treat him- as others have said, times were tough and the people tougher- the prevailing attitude being you got what you asked for-
 
It was a Desert Sand 1934 Ford V-8. Still alot of them on the street today. You'll see them as rod runs.
 
My best friends sister lived in the Bonnie and Clyde upstairs garage apartment where a massive shoot out occurred with them and the police. This is in Joplin Missouri.

Concerning the shootout. Before the mid 1960s it was unlawful for an officer to not attempt to use all reasonable means to apprehend or "stop" a fleeing felon. If a felon were to escape, that felon would then endanger society. An officer was proper in stopping a felon by using deadly force and actually negligent in failing to do so. Simply put you did not mess around with cops in the old days.
 
Been a while since I read about the deal, so I'm coasting on memory.

Texas Ranger Frank Hamer was quoted as saying he thought they could have been captured. His version was that the first shooting stopped the car, and then the Louisiana cops opened up on the passenger compartment after the car crashed.

Given B&C's record of murder of LEOs, the wipeout wasn't at all surprising...

Art
 
Wasn't there a thing in the day, (perhaps even still today) called "Outlaw status"?
The old "Dead or Alive" ?

I thought that folks charged with particularly henious crimes could be tried in
abstentia, and they could either come forward and face the charges, or be called
"Outlaws". If Outlaw status were invoked, well, it was a dead or alive, doesn't
matter.

I think the agents acted within the law.

But I don't know anything.
 
Art Eatman said:
Been a while since I read about the deal, so I'm coasting on memory.

Texas Ranger Frank Hamer was quoted as saying he thought they could have been captured.


Art
Click to expand...

Not that it matters now, but at the time of the shootout Frank Hamer was not a Texas Ranger. He had quit the Rangers some years earlier because he did not like the Governer. Hamer was working as a Special Investigator for the Texas Boards of Prisons with the sole purpose of bringing Bonnie and Clyde to justice.
 
I remember him saying that it was just shot to pieces and they couldn't figure out how the police had managed to avoid the engine and blow the rest of it apart
Click to expand...

Maybe because they were aiming a Bonnie and Clyde?
 
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