Hughes County,

Oklahoma

Deputies Are Shot Down; Gunmen Flee Into Hills After Battle At Calvin

Suspects Surprise Investigating Officers With Shots From Car, Escape In Hail Of Bullets; Youth Held In Chase At Norman

From The Daily Oklahoma, Thursday, March 12, 1936.

    Luke CHADWICK, Hughes County constable, lay critically injured in a Holdenville hospital Thursday from bullet wounds received in midnight battle with two gunmen in front of a Calvin cafe.

    Bill GADDY, deputy sheriff of Hughes County, was shot twice in the shoulder when he and CHADWICK clashed with the gunmen after following them out of the cafe to question them. GADDY's condition was said not to be serious. Hospital attendants said CHADWICK 'has a chance' to survive. He was shot in the stomach and in the head.

    Meanwhile, a 19-year-old youth who gave his name as John BARKLEY, Houston, Texas, was held in the Cleveland County jail at Norman as climax to an early morning pursuit of an Oklahoma City stolen car.

    Norman peace officers flushed BARKLEY out of a clump of shrubbery on the north edge of Noble where he had been hiding for an hour, they said, after his car overturned in the chase.

    Officers said there was no connection between the Calvin and Noble incidents.

Had Two Autos

    According to Mack HARDWICK, former Hughes County peace officer and witness of the Calvin shooting, CHADWICK suspected the two gunmen when they entered the cafe a few minutes before midnight. They had driven two cars into Calvin about 15 minutes earlier, leaving one in a garage across the street and parking the other in front of the cafe.

    Noting that the men were armed, CHADWICK followed them out of the cafe when they had finished eating and entered GADDY's car as the other pair boarded their machine parked nearby. The gunmen pulled away, stopped and backed up alongside GADDY's car, asked road information and then suddenly opened fire into the officers' machine.

    The chase of Norman officers started when Clifford MCINTYRE and Elmer BURK, night radio car patrolmen, saw an auto reported as stolen Wednesday night from Joe TAYLOR, 1219 Northeast 18th Street, Oklahoma City. The officers pursued the car to the north edge of Noble where the fugitive machine failed to make a turn and crashed into a ditch.

    Its driver crawled into a nursery beside the road. MCINTYRE and BURK telephoned for deputy sheriffs who surrounded the nursery. An hour later, according to George MCKINNEY, Cleveland County deputy, BARKLEY crawled from under shrubbery to the highway almost into the arms of C. I. ADAM, another deputy.

    MCKINNEY said BARKLEY denied he was the driver of the car and quoted him as saying he had been struck by  hit-and-run driver as he walked along the highway. The youth suffered bruises and a gash over his eye.

Car Held At Calvin

    Officers said tracks made by the hiding driver near the nursery tallied those of BARKLEY. The youth told officers he formerly lived in Oklahoma City.

    At Calvin, officials were holding the second of the gunmen's two cars which carried as Arkansas license tag.