crofoot629
Absent Comrade
I dunno where you're from, but in Oregon the Gamies are State police Officers.
Emory
Claude Dallas -- Whatta Ya Think?
- Thread starter Onomea
- Start date
I dunno where you're from, but in Oregon the Gamies are State police Officers.
Emory
In Idaho, Conservation Officers go to the same statewide POST (Police Oficer Standards and Training)school as other law enforcemant officers and along with the State Police are the only LEO's with statewide law enforcement authority.
In remote areas, they are often the closest LEO's and often participate in drug and felony arrests.
In Oregon, The "game wardens" are state poice officers.
In remote areas, they are often the closest LEO's and often participate in drug and felony arrests.
In Oregon, The "game wardens" are state poice officers.
truckemup97
Member
They can and will in Florida.
Doug M.
Member
They are a general authority agency in Washington, too, as a result of a statute change a few years ago. That was probably a mistake. They are possibly even more clueless than WSP, which is a real feat considering that they at least attend an academy which meets state standards.
HOWEVER, this is not a string about that. It's about a murdering piece of excrement who thought the law did not apply to him.
HOWEVER, this is not a string about that. It's about a murdering piece of excrement who thought the law did not apply to him.
OP
I've read considerably more than Wikipedia. I became interested in him when listening to an Ian Tyson song about him. The song is a highly romanticized account of the tale. Listening, a few years ago, I said, "I bet this is about a real guy," and looked him up. There are two books about him, and I read the one generally acknowledged to be more accurate, Jack Olsen's Give a Boy a Gun.
I am curious as to reactions here because he embodied much of what many of us admire and respect: He enjoyed, practiced with, and carried a handgun. Loved/lived in the outdoors. Was very independent, etc. On the surface he seems a 19th century cowboy/mountain man character who could not tolerate the 20th century. But..., you study him for a while and you begin to realize that there's more there than meets the eye, that he is pyschologically bent.
He's also interesting because people feel, or felt, so passionately about him. People project onto him their own perceptions of how they view the world.
The Tyson song is great, but it really angers those who see him as a plain murderer rather than a romantic-outlaw-through-no-fault-of-his-own type.
imjin138
US Veteran
I have read the two books about him, talked to some of the LEOs in the area when I lived there. Mostly it was divided between those who liked him(the bar crowd)and hose who thought he was a cold blooded killer.
he shot both officers without warning over a game violation, and when both were down he shot them in the head again to make sure they were dead.
He wouldn't give up the location of one of the bodies until after he was convicted, most officers I know wether they are game wardens, patrol officers or corrections go to work withthe notion they have a duty to perform and they do it wether thats zealous or over zealous I don't know.
When I lived in Oregon I knew lots of folks who lived in the back woods and wanted nothing to do with the Government or LEOs, but they didn't kill them.
he shot both officers without warning over a game violation, and when both were down he shot them in the head again to make sure they were dead.
He wouldn't give up the location of one of the bodies until after he was convicted, most officers I know wether they are game wardens, patrol officers or corrections go to work withthe notion they have a duty to perform and they do it wether thats zealous or over zealous I don't know.
When I lived in Oregon I knew lots of folks who lived in the back woods and wanted nothing to do with the Government or LEOs, but they didn't kill them.
imjin138
US Veteran
+1
ToddS112
Member
Game Wardens have one of the most dangerous jobs in LE. Basically, EVERYONE you contact is armed. They are usually out in the boonies where there is no back-up, no witnesses, no radio comms.
There are still quite a few anti-social, anti-gov't, anti-everything folks that basically live in the National Forests for at least part of the year.
We patrol thousands of miles of forest in the summer. I've gotten the heebee-geebees more than a few times. Luckily 99.99% of the folks you run into are just out there enjoying their national lands. It's that .01% that can really ruin your day.
There are still quite a few anti-social, anti-gov't, anti-everything folks that basically live in the National Forests for at least part of the year.
We patrol thousands of miles of forest in the summer. I've gotten the heebee-geebees more than a few times. Luckily 99.99% of the folks you run into are just out there enjoying their national lands. It's that .01% that can really ruin your day.
imjin138
US Veteran
It is a tough and danerous job there is no doubt about that. I have had two instances where I ran into wardens.
Once I was fishing and he asked to see my license and fish and once while deer hunting they asked to see my tag.
Both times went well and they both treated me civily, they chatted for a little bit and they went on to whatever they were doing. If everyone followed the game laws I expect we wouldn't need wardens. But sadly thats not the case.
I just watched a show about a female warden who went iundercover to bust a a bad hunter, and I remember reading an autobiography a a 30 year warden out west.
Just like the two that Dallas shot he had his run ins with bad characters too.
When you are dealing with criminals thay act criminally and that is what Dallas did he was poacher not a hunter and he knew he was breaking the law and didn't want to get caught or go to jail. He would do whatever became necessary to stay out, that is why he should still be behind bars.
Once I was fishing and he asked to see my license and fish and once while deer hunting they asked to see my tag.
Both times went well and they both treated me civily, they chatted for a little bit and they went on to whatever they were doing. If everyone followed the game laws I expect we wouldn't need wardens. But sadly thats not the case.
I just watched a show about a female warden who went iundercover to bust a a bad hunter, and I remember reading an autobiography a a 30 year warden out west.
Just like the two that Dallas shot he had his run ins with bad characters too.
When you are dealing with criminals thay act criminally and that is what Dallas did he was poacher not a hunter and he knew he was breaking the law and didn't want to get caught or go to jail. He would do whatever became necessary to stay out, that is why he should still be behind bars.
G
Guest
Guest
It isn't a full year since we lost one of our Game Agents to a Parolee who killed her and then ran off and killed another retired LEO just to get his car. He won't be doing that again!!!
Centenniel
Member
Claude Dallas shot and killed two LEOs. He should sit in a jail cell until he dies.
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
Here is a old 1971 story of what happened to a warden in wisconsin. I was on the department in 1962 but not long. I was laid off after a 6 month appointment and was due to go back on as a warden in a few weeks. I was with the fisheries division. Another job came up and I didnt go back. In those days a warden wasnt as loved, or the job considered glamoris.
This man was not only killed but decapitated!
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org...forcement/lafave.htm
This man was not only killed but decapitated!
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org...forcement/lafave.htm
Gatofeo
Member
How anyone can enjoy a song about that murderous, cowardly Claude Dallas is beyond me.
It would be like enjoying a good ol' song about Heinrich Himmler, Idi Amin or Pol Pot.
Dallas is lowlife. Those who profit by romanticizing him are just as low -- and ignorant to boot.
He should have been burned at the stake. Every breath he takes is a spit in the face of Lady Justice.
It would be like enjoying a good ol' song about Heinrich Himmler, Idi Amin or Pol Pot.
Dallas is lowlife. Those who profit by romanticizing him are just as low -- and ignorant to boot.
He should have been burned at the stake. Every breath he takes is a spit in the face of Lady Justice.
jholder
Member
IMHO:
Dallas was born 100 years too late.
Bill Pogue had a reputation as a thug, whether it was deserved or not we'll probably never know. However I don't see any rural jury in a conservative area like Idaho being this lenient on a cop killer unless there was legitimate questions surrounding Pogue.
In the end, it don't mean squat.
Dallas was born 100 years too late.
Bill Pogue had a reputation as a thug, whether it was deserved or not we'll probably never know. However I don't see any rural jury in a conservative area like Idaho being this lenient on a cop killer unless there was legitimate questions surrounding Pogue.
In the end, it don't mean squat.
All I know is what I saw on a show about him on TV several years ago and granted, that could certainly be very biased one way or the other. However, from what I remember, it was pretty clear cut that he flat out murdered a couple of game wardens.
Wickahoney
US Veteran
Okay, I might as well make everybody angry!!!
Yes, the killing took place in Owyhee County. Sort of my area of the world except that Owyhee County, Idaho is the 4th largest county in the USA. We have a population density of well less than 1 person per square mile and it'll be LOWER, not higher in the next census. My place is 53 miles from the highway with one part year neighbor 17 miles away, during the summer.
This is as much a function of very very little deeded land. That place 17 miles away is the nearest deeded land to my 648 acres.
Now as to the bar crowd. Yes, the bar crowd at the Buckaroo Bar in Paradise Valley, Nevada were friends of Claudes and supported him. So did LOTS of the law abiding citizens of Owyhee County. I have as of yet met a single person that knew him or that he worked for that did not like him. I can not claim to having done anything other than say Hi, a time or two in passing.
The area where the incident happened was proably one of the most remote in the lower 48. The south side of the South Fork of the Owyhee River is just about as remote as you can get. I have never been there and I doudt seriously that there are 100 people alive that have, other than floaters that have floted through the area during the infrequent high water in the spring of some years. To add to how remote it is, it is now a MAJOR portion of the new Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness Area just approved by congress.
Speaking of which the lower section including Jacks Creek, Wickahoney Creek and Big Jacks Creek are also part of the new wilderness area and once it is in place you nor anybody else will be able to drive to our ranch. We border the north end of that portion of the new wildernes area.
Luckily we were grandfathered and retain our "right" to drive into the ranch and use mechanized equipment. Yes, we gave up some of our BLM graze and consolidated other portions.
I also figure my property taxes will increase by at least ten fold.
Off subject, sorry. The general mind set in Owyhee County is that it's still the 1880s and the locals would prefer not to be messed with.
For you supporters of Law Enforcement, this is a county in which the Sheriff refused to "ALLOW" Federal officers to patrol in under the threat of arrest!!! At the time he did that I was working as a LEO out of state for the Feds and kept asking myself just how the Hell does a sheriff get away with this SH.. and why are the Feds kissing his behind. I can only say polotics and let it go at that.
Okay, Bill Poge and Conley Elms were the Idaho Fish& Game officers (Conservation Officers) assigned to Owyhee County. They were real police officers being sworn etc. However, at the time there were NO Felony Game violations.
Bill Poge had a long and very checkered LEO career and to say he was unliked and unloved by the residents of the county would be a vast understatement. He was one of those guys that was very very badge heavy and frankly a bully.
Con Elms a a good natured, big ole boy that got partnered with him and spent most of his time defusing stuff the Poge got them into. In a county as far right as you can get with as law abiding people as you can get, Poge was almost universally reviled.
I won't speak for others but can use a few of MY run ins as examples. One year my brother Roy and I decided to go Chukar hunting on opening day of upland bird season. For those of you that have actually done it, this is hard, dusty, dirty work and hardley deserves the definition of "hunting". ;-) After we got up to Jacks Creek we decided Chukar hunting sounded like a lot of work and instead we spent the morning shooting feral pigeons flying out of the canyon into the nearest ranches in Little Valley. By ten or so in the morning we had killed several hundred. Feral pigeons are considered vermin, can be shot year round, with any weapon, are not "game" animals and don't have to be retrieved or taken into possession.
Sort of like the idea of shooting flying rats!!
After shooting that many we decided that we could actually retrieve some and smoke them and we recovered 100 or so, breasted them out and threw the breast into a cooler with some ice and headed home.
When we got out to the highway, Poge and Elms were running a check station. I pulled in. When asked if we had been bird hunting I responded "NO" "We have been killing pigeons".
Poge demanded we open the cooler which we did, then the complete check of licenses, guns, tags, vehicle information etc. Now, you have to remember we are under no odligation to even pick up the dead birds or have a license for them.
After about 1/2 hour delay Poge advised he was going to sieze the vehicle and our guns and issue us tickets for wasting game and.............. I'd been civil right up till then. I explained that he was a damned fool and that we were under no odligation to retrieve pigeons. "Well, you should have left a wing attached". Show me where in the regs it requires that? Trust me it went down hill fast from there.
It ended with me telling him to take the truck and the guns and the birds and any other damned thing he wanted and we would see him in court in Murphy. By then Con Elms was trying his best to defuse the situation and "I" wasn't the problem!!! I pointed out to him that I intended to walk the mile to my cousins ranch, get another truck and retrieve the dead bird and show up in court with them. Besides I really wanted Poge to try and convince the judge that he honestly thought I'd killed 100+ chukars by 10am opening day!!! Elms at that point made up some story that they were bigger than chuckars and that we were free to go.
Skip forward a year or so. It's the middle of the night and Cousin David, Pike and I are in the upper hay field of the ranch at 2am shooting jackrabbits by spot light. This is NOT an activity illegal for the land owner. I noticed a pickup over on Shoo Fly Cut Off and then the lights went out. A few minutes later out across the hay field come Poge and Elms with the blue light on. Of course they don't know quite where they are so they are crushing 10" sprinkler mains every 40 yards as they bounce across OUR pasture.
Out come Bill, swearing per usual and informing us we are all going to jail etc etc.........
I thought I did quite well when I asked him just what regulation we had violated? At this point he pointed out that even if we were shooting jackrabbits it was illegal to spotlight them even on private land "without written permission of the landowner". This all delivered with as much venom and disrespect as good ole Bill could muster.
At that point I "politley" asked if he knew who the land owner was? David Somebody!!! Does he look anything like the driver of this pickup??
Oh SH...!! At which point David "suggested" he get the F off our property before he had him arrested for tresspassing and by the way be sure and inform the Director of F&G that we would be filing a damage claim for the sprinler mains!!! That was a little over $3000.
I personally had at least 3 or 4 more run ins with Poge. None were valid. None resulted in arrest. None resulted in a ticket. All were a bully trying to push his weight and his badge around. However, I was a LEO and knew the rules and regulations and more importantly my rights. The number of people he abused and arrested and ticketed for no valid reason was legondary!!!!
Why he was never fired was a mystery to nearly everybody.
Claude Dallas was off work for the season and was trapping bobcats on the south side of the Owyhee out of Paradise Valley, NV. He was poaching an occassional deer for food and cat bait. The pack in was over 30 miles by horse/mule. Most residents sort of knew where Claude was and what he was doing. Nobody complained.
Fish and Game got a formal complaint. Until 2 years ago it was never divulged, even at the trial who complained, "Due to fear of retribution". Poge and Elms brow beat the guy who had packed Claude in and went to his camp once a month with staples to take them to his camp by threatening to arrest him!! For what? A misdemeanor after the fact?? It was just emblematic.
When they got to the camp the guy that packed them in, the other person there, said that Poge braced Cluade and got verbally abusive and then Poge threaten Dallas, "You can either go out of here riding in a saddle or across one" Dallas construed that as a death threat and opened fire killing Poge and Elms in the intial gun fight.
At that point he went into his tent and got a 22 rifle and shot each officer once in the head. He dumped Con Elms body in the Owyhee River because he couldn't get him up on a saddle and he packed Poges body out a ways and then buried it. Rudy gave him 24 hours and then reported the shooting to the Humbolt County Sheriif in Nevada and then Tim Nettleton, the Owyhee County Sheriff.
The man hunt ensued. Tim called and asked if I'd help and I declined. Mostly because I was totally unfamilar with the search area and couldn't see where I would have been a lick of help.
Nettleton later built a reputation for catching Claude which couldn't be further from the truth.
The first time he was caught by the FBI in the mid west. This was after tapping most of the phones of friends and opening mail without a warrant. But lets not quibble.
At trail Claude told his story. He was convicted of Volutary Manslaughter. Had he not shot them in the head at the end of the shooting he would have walked. Nobody doudted for minute that Poge had made a death threat!!
The court refused to allow Poges prior history to come out at trial. So the fact he had many many complaints for excess violence against him was not brought out. The fact that he had been fired from 2 other agencies for excessive force did not come out etc.
Judge Lodge gave him a fixed 30 for Voluntary Manslaughter. There were many people that thought that was an abuse of his judicial power.
Claude was sent to the Idaho State Pen. He later escaped. It took the FBI a while to run him down again, this time in California. Again by tapping the telephones and monitoring the mail of nearly every person he knew.
At trial for escape it was proven that gaurds had threatened his life and had made repeated threats to have inmates kill him. He was found NOT GUILTY of escape.
He was sent to several out of state pens and till he was released some of his friends still had wire taps and opened mail.
He never applied for parole. He never attended a parole hearing. He topped his time and was discharged. He relocated to eastern Washington and was buckarooing. Idaho F&G found out where he was and issued a "Law Enorcement Warning" to all agencies in the area. Having read it, it was a blatant appeal in an off hand way to get some LEO to make a traffic stop and have a reason to shoot him. THe agency was taken to court. They were admonished by the judge and ordered to cease and desist.
In the last year or so they finally released the information that the "complainant" to the original poaching was the foreman of the 44 Ranch. This is a ranch owned and operated by the Nature Conservancy, to show all us stupid yokels that have been here since 1860 how to ranch in this country without destroying the enviroment. In other words by a stranger that was not a long time resident and who's values were certainly not the same as most people in the county. By the way, the information wasn't released till he retired and moved away, which was smart because I suspect somebody would have played pay back. I don't know his name but I sure as Hell wouldn't be him and be in rural Owyhee County.
Last I knew Claude was still buckarooing.
Bill Poge had no business carrying a badge or being in charge of anything and unforunately his threats and bullying finally caught up to him. As a retired LEO I can't condone his death. On the other hand if there was ever a guy that went out his way to pick a fight and end up dead, Bill Poge was that guy.
Conley Elms was an decent guy and a decent cop who unforttanetly had a great deal of loyalty and ended up partnered with a guy destined to get him in a jam, come Hell or High Water.
Cluade doesn't get discussed much any more simply because everybody had pretty much established their opinions and positions long ago.
Sorry this was long but it really wasn't as simple as many would like it to have been.
Ross W Thomas
Great Basin Ranch
Owyhee County, ID
Yes, the killing took place in Owyhee County. Sort of my area of the world except that Owyhee County, Idaho is the 4th largest county in the USA. We have a population density of well less than 1 person per square mile and it'll be LOWER, not higher in the next census. My place is 53 miles from the highway with one part year neighbor 17 miles away, during the summer.
This is as much a function of very very little deeded land. That place 17 miles away is the nearest deeded land to my 648 acres.
Now as to the bar crowd. Yes, the bar crowd at the Buckaroo Bar in Paradise Valley, Nevada were friends of Claudes and supported him. So did LOTS of the law abiding citizens of Owyhee County. I have as of yet met a single person that knew him or that he worked for that did not like him. I can not claim to having done anything other than say Hi, a time or two in passing.
The area where the incident happened was proably one of the most remote in the lower 48. The south side of the South Fork of the Owyhee River is just about as remote as you can get. I have never been there and I doudt seriously that there are 100 people alive that have, other than floaters that have floted through the area during the infrequent high water in the spring of some years. To add to how remote it is, it is now a MAJOR portion of the new Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness Area just approved by congress.
Speaking of which the lower section including Jacks Creek, Wickahoney Creek and Big Jacks Creek are also part of the new wilderness area and once it is in place you nor anybody else will be able to drive to our ranch. We border the north end of that portion of the new wildernes area.
Luckily we were grandfathered and retain our "right" to drive into the ranch and use mechanized equipment. Yes, we gave up some of our BLM graze and consolidated other portions.
I also figure my property taxes will increase by at least ten fold.
Off subject, sorry. The general mind set in Owyhee County is that it's still the 1880s and the locals would prefer not to be messed with.
For you supporters of Law Enforcement, this is a county in which the Sheriff refused to "ALLOW" Federal officers to patrol in under the threat of arrest!!! At the time he did that I was working as a LEO out of state for the Feds and kept asking myself just how the Hell does a sheriff get away with this SH.. and why are the Feds kissing his behind. I can only say polotics and let it go at that.
Okay, Bill Poge and Conley Elms were the Idaho Fish& Game officers (Conservation Officers) assigned to Owyhee County. They were real police officers being sworn etc. However, at the time there were NO Felony Game violations.
Bill Poge had a long and very checkered LEO career and to say he was unliked and unloved by the residents of the county would be a vast understatement. He was one of those guys that was very very badge heavy and frankly a bully.
Con Elms a a good natured, big ole boy that got partnered with him and spent most of his time defusing stuff the Poge got them into. In a county as far right as you can get with as law abiding people as you can get, Poge was almost universally reviled.
I won't speak for others but can use a few of MY run ins as examples. One year my brother Roy and I decided to go Chukar hunting on opening day of upland bird season. For those of you that have actually done it, this is hard, dusty, dirty work and hardley deserves the definition of "hunting". ;-) After we got up to Jacks Creek we decided Chukar hunting sounded like a lot of work and instead we spent the morning shooting feral pigeons flying out of the canyon into the nearest ranches in Little Valley. By ten or so in the morning we had killed several hundred. Feral pigeons are considered vermin, can be shot year round, with any weapon, are not "game" animals and don't have to be retrieved or taken into possession.
Sort of like the idea of shooting flying rats!!
After shooting that many we decided that we could actually retrieve some and smoke them and we recovered 100 or so, breasted them out and threw the breast into a cooler with some ice and headed home.
When we got out to the highway, Poge and Elms were running a check station. I pulled in. When asked if we had been bird hunting I responded "NO" "We have been killing pigeons".
Poge demanded we open the cooler which we did, then the complete check of licenses, guns, tags, vehicle information etc. Now, you have to remember we are under no odligation to even pick up the dead birds or have a license for them.
After about 1/2 hour delay Poge advised he was going to sieze the vehicle and our guns and issue us tickets for wasting game and.............. I'd been civil right up till then. I explained that he was a damned fool and that we were under no odligation to retrieve pigeons. "Well, you should have left a wing attached". Show me where in the regs it requires that? Trust me it went down hill fast from there.
It ended with me telling him to take the truck and the guns and the birds and any other damned thing he wanted and we would see him in court in Murphy. By then Con Elms was trying his best to defuse the situation and "I" wasn't the problem!!! I pointed out to him that I intended to walk the mile to my cousins ranch, get another truck and retrieve the dead bird and show up in court with them. Besides I really wanted Poge to try and convince the judge that he honestly thought I'd killed 100+ chukars by 10am opening day!!! Elms at that point made up some story that they were bigger than chuckars and that we were free to go.
Skip forward a year or so. It's the middle of the night and Cousin David, Pike and I are in the upper hay field of the ranch at 2am shooting jackrabbits by spot light. This is NOT an activity illegal for the land owner. I noticed a pickup over on Shoo Fly Cut Off and then the lights went out. A few minutes later out across the hay field come Poge and Elms with the blue light on. Of course they don't know quite where they are so they are crushing 10" sprinkler mains every 40 yards as they bounce across OUR pasture.
Out come Bill, swearing per usual and informing us we are all going to jail etc etc.........
I thought I did quite well when I asked him just what regulation we had violated? At this point he pointed out that even if we were shooting jackrabbits it was illegal to spotlight them even on private land "without written permission of the landowner". This all delivered with as much venom and disrespect as good ole Bill could muster.
At that point I "politley" asked if he knew who the land owner was? David Somebody!!! Does he look anything like the driver of this pickup??
Oh SH...!! At which point David "suggested" he get the F off our property before he had him arrested for tresspassing and by the way be sure and inform the Director of F&G that we would be filing a damage claim for the sprinler mains!!! That was a little over $3000.
I personally had at least 3 or 4 more run ins with Poge. None were valid. None resulted in arrest. None resulted in a ticket. All were a bully trying to push his weight and his badge around. However, I was a LEO and knew the rules and regulations and more importantly my rights. The number of people he abused and arrested and ticketed for no valid reason was legondary!!!!
Why he was never fired was a mystery to nearly everybody.
Claude Dallas was off work for the season and was trapping bobcats on the south side of the Owyhee out of Paradise Valley, NV. He was poaching an occassional deer for food and cat bait. The pack in was over 30 miles by horse/mule. Most residents sort of knew where Claude was and what he was doing. Nobody complained.
Fish and Game got a formal complaint. Until 2 years ago it was never divulged, even at the trial who complained, "Due to fear of retribution". Poge and Elms brow beat the guy who had packed Claude in and went to his camp once a month with staples to take them to his camp by threatening to arrest him!! For what? A misdemeanor after the fact?? It was just emblematic.
When they got to the camp the guy that packed them in, the other person there, said that Poge braced Cluade and got verbally abusive and then Poge threaten Dallas, "You can either go out of here riding in a saddle or across one" Dallas construed that as a death threat and opened fire killing Poge and Elms in the intial gun fight.
At that point he went into his tent and got a 22 rifle and shot each officer once in the head. He dumped Con Elms body in the Owyhee River because he couldn't get him up on a saddle and he packed Poges body out a ways and then buried it. Rudy gave him 24 hours and then reported the shooting to the Humbolt County Sheriif in Nevada and then Tim Nettleton, the Owyhee County Sheriff.
The man hunt ensued. Tim called and asked if I'd help and I declined. Mostly because I was totally unfamilar with the search area and couldn't see where I would have been a lick of help.
Nettleton later built a reputation for catching Claude which couldn't be further from the truth.
The first time he was caught by the FBI in the mid west. This was after tapping most of the phones of friends and opening mail without a warrant. But lets not quibble.
At trail Claude told his story. He was convicted of Volutary Manslaughter. Had he not shot them in the head at the end of the shooting he would have walked. Nobody doudted for minute that Poge had made a death threat!!
The court refused to allow Poges prior history to come out at trial. So the fact he had many many complaints for excess violence against him was not brought out. The fact that he had been fired from 2 other agencies for excessive force did not come out etc.
Judge Lodge gave him a fixed 30 for Voluntary Manslaughter. There were many people that thought that was an abuse of his judicial power.
Claude was sent to the Idaho State Pen. He later escaped. It took the FBI a while to run him down again, this time in California. Again by tapping the telephones and monitoring the mail of nearly every person he knew.
At trial for escape it was proven that gaurds had threatened his life and had made repeated threats to have inmates kill him. He was found NOT GUILTY of escape.
He was sent to several out of state pens and till he was released some of his friends still had wire taps and opened mail.
He never applied for parole. He never attended a parole hearing. He topped his time and was discharged. He relocated to eastern Washington and was buckarooing. Idaho F&G found out where he was and issued a "Law Enorcement Warning" to all agencies in the area. Having read it, it was a blatant appeal in an off hand way to get some LEO to make a traffic stop and have a reason to shoot him. THe agency was taken to court. They were admonished by the judge and ordered to cease and desist.
In the last year or so they finally released the information that the "complainant" to the original poaching was the foreman of the 44 Ranch. This is a ranch owned and operated by the Nature Conservancy, to show all us stupid yokels that have been here since 1860 how to ranch in this country without destroying the enviroment. In other words by a stranger that was not a long time resident and who's values were certainly not the same as most people in the county. By the way, the information wasn't released till he retired and moved away, which was smart because I suspect somebody would have played pay back. I don't know his name but I sure as Hell wouldn't be him and be in rural Owyhee County.
Last I knew Claude was still buckarooing.
Bill Poge had no business carrying a badge or being in charge of anything and unforunately his threats and bullying finally caught up to him. As a retired LEO I can't condone his death. On the other hand if there was ever a guy that went out his way to pick a fight and end up dead, Bill Poge was that guy.
Conley Elms was an decent guy and a decent cop who unforttanetly had a great deal of loyalty and ended up partnered with a guy destined to get him in a jam, come Hell or High Water.
Cluade doesn't get discussed much any more simply because everybody had pretty much established their opinions and positions long ago.
Sorry this was long but it really wasn't as simple as many would like it to have been.
Ross W Thomas
Great Basin Ranch
Owyhee County, ID
7.62foryou
Member
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That was a very interesting account Mr Thomas. Thank you very much. It's hard to condone the killing of anyone who wears a badge. I know I wore one for a time back in the 70's. I knew men like Bill Poge and detested them. I see more of them today than ever. It's very dishearting to me. Seems today at least here in the northeast if a cop can't ticket or arrest someone they want no contact with them. I've watched State Police cars cruise by stranded motorist didn't appear like they were going anywhere special. They weren't in a hurry. Maybe they called it in I don't know. I remember the oldtimer who trained me telling me to help everyone I could, "we can all use the goodwill and it's our job". Seems today most are more interested in repelling out of heilcopters shooting MP-5's than helping people in ordinary situations. Just seems like instead of protect and serve it's now arrest and generate revenue.
OP
Thank you for the response, Wickahoney. I figured you'd have an informed opinion. I appreciate you takin' the time to lay it out.
It does sound like a very different world where you live.
Sounds like Pogue was a jerk, but had he ever killed anyone before? What I mean is there are ways to deal with bullies without killin' em.
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I find it a very interesting case because, as I said, people tend to see it so differently.
It does sound like a very different world where you live.
Sounds like Pogue was a jerk, but had he ever killed anyone before? What I mean is there are ways to deal with bullies without killin' em.
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I find it a very interesting case because, as I said, people tend to see it so differently.
Wyatt Burp
Member
Somebody might of mentioned this. Give A Boy a Gun by Jack Olsen is one of my fav. books. Totally unbiased. You never know where the author leans. Like someone else said (zulu?), he was an anti social coward. He's a murderer even tho I admired some individual characteristics which are far outweighed by neg. ones. Rolling Stone did a great article in the 80'1 about his escape.
