Claude Dallas is one of the legends of the Northwest. About a quarter century ago, two F&G officers operating on a tip, discovered that he had trapped four bobcats a few days before the season started in Idaho near the Oregon border on a fork of the Owyhee river. This was unlucky for them as Dallas shot and killed them both including giving them the Coup d’gra. One officer’s body, Pogue, was never found. Dallas was found guilty and except for a year’s escape, spent 22 years in jail. He is soon to be released.
Things are less simple though. Pogue was known to be a vicious 300 pound cop and more than one honest man had considered popping him. Pogue was anti-hunter and anti-fisherman and considered both types to be murderers of innocent animals. His reputation was known far and wide. He would have made a great PETAnazi. When interviewed, the jurors would not have convicted Dallas if he had not given the final coup d’gra. Moreover, they said later, they would have let him go completely if they had known the beliefs of this PETAphile.
In any event, a new era starts with the release of Dallas.
Now that is interesting! I learned of Dallas thanks to the Ian Tyson song about him. In fact, back when I was working on a ranch in BC and starting into photography, I made an elaborate script and shot a 200 image+ slide show one summer for the song.
“Dear Pete”
Surely you jest. I’m going to give you credit for a brain and consider your post just a way of humoring this forum. You couldn’t possibly be serious about justifying the murder of anyone regardless of their anti this or that orientation.
This was mentioned on another web site. The question was raised whether a fish and Game officer needs a search warrant to search a man’s tent if his tent is considered his home, as Claude’s tent was his place of residence?
Claude asked the officers to just site him for his violations just as they had done for another poacher earlier in the day. Pogue wouldn’t. They searched his tent when he asked them to get a search warrant.
Pogue and Dallas were two men who were living the old west (150 years ago or more) in their own minds. They met at the wrong place and at the wrong time.
Some claim that Pogue was trying to be “the big man” because he had taken Conley Elms with him on his rounds. If I remember right Pogue was actually going out of his area of and called Michael Elms, the officer in charge of the area. He wasn’t able to get Michael Elms because he was sick and ended up inviting Conley, Michael’s younger brother. It was actually Elms who was the large man.
This is how Jeff Long discribed Bill Pogue in his book “Outlaw, The True Story of Claude Dallas.”
"Bill Pogue was known among his fellow officers as a lawman’s lawman, a good, tough officer. There was a no nonsense about the fifty-year-old man, and he was not famous for his compromise. To Pogue the law was the law. Thatinflexibility was not designed to earn him popularity, just obedience and there were stories about his manner. “He had more badge than he could stand,” one hunter would describe him. Even his close friends remarked on his deameanor: “When Bill walked up to you, there was no question in your mind that he represented the law.”
Murder is never justified. This whole situation at Bull Camp could have been avoided if one or the other of these men would have just backed down, but both were from the same stubborn mold.
Dallas felt he couldn’t leave everything he owned at that camp and ride in with Pogue. Pogue felt that the law had to be served and wouldn’t back down. That situation usually ends up in some type of heat.
Did Pogue pull his gun as a last effort to force Dallas to go with him? Still doesn’t justify Dallas pulling his and dropping the two officers.
I know people who had run-ins with Pogue while legally hunting on their own property. He was lucky to have lived as long as he did. He was a low life who had no regard for the law…only his own beliefs. Just because someone carries a badge does not mean they are not criminals themselves. My County sheriff is in the big house for stealing $400,000 from the county. So far they have not got sheriff Brown (yet) for boinking little boys. They did finally get a deputy for boinking little girls and selling children drugs. Another Bend cop has 17 counts against himself at the moment. A past sheriff Of Sisters is in the big house for boinking a 13 year old girl. Pogue was a bad cop who ran into a bad end. My step brother was a bad cop. He has been in the mental ward now for a couple decades. It would be best if he dies there. He came for me once. Didn’t work out well for him. I hope no one here ever has the unfortunate luck to run into a bad cop.
I think it is an outrage that this man was released.I don’t care what kind of a reputation the two game officers had,Dallas had broke the law and they were there doing their job.
When they walked out of the tent they had searched Dallas raised a gun and shot both men down because he did not want to be punished for breaking the law.
There was a witness to this crime who would not testify in court for fear of his own life.He had told police how Dallas had shot both men and then made sure they were dead with more shots.Dallas could not move the body of the heavier man and wanted the witness to help him quarter the body like some game animal so he could pack it out on a mule and dispose of it.The man refused to help so he dumped the body in the river.He never would tell were he hid they other mans body.Unfortunately he was only charged with manslaughter instead of murder because they never found the other man and the witness would not testify.
I am sure alot of us have run into Fish and Game officers who we thought were going a bit to far.If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear from them.And there are other ways of dealing with people besides violence.He should be spending the rest of his life in that prison.
Dallas did eventually show them where he put Elms’s body. Steven’s was the only witness and he was examined by the prosecution at least twice. Get your facts before you post.
If you want to read the best researched book on this issue. Get Jeff Longs book, “Oultaw. The true Story of Claude Dallas.” Jeff traveled 16,000 miles in the area and interviewed nearly 100 people, including ranchers, buckaroos, lawmen, and the families of the victims and killer.
This is not about fly fishing, but it does have some bearing for the outdoorsman on how hunters, fishermen, general outdoorsmen and Fish & Game officers should interact.
Attitude plays a big part in how you get treated by law enforcement. I know several officers and they tell me that they will for sure give a dink a ticket, while they may or may not let a nice person off with a warning.
Pogue had given a poacher a ticket earlier in the day, but felt he needed to run Dallas in because of his attitude.
Nothing justifies what happened, but it is good for us to know, that we all need to be curteous to one another both in the field and out.
I don’t think that someone who shoots down two on duty wildlife law enforcement officers should ever breath free air again. I’ve been a KS Hunter Ed. instructor for many years and I would hate to see the conservation officers I know killed by poachers. When you think about it, they often deal with people that are better armed than themselves.
Like many of us on this BB, I take a pretty hard line against poaching. When I go fishing, I follow the rules and I expect those I’m around to do the same. Slot lengths, creel limits, tackle restrictions, catch and release rules and other regulations are important conservation tools. Hunting and trapping regulations, like with fishing, are designed to help ensure that future generations will have the opportunity to enjoy our great outdoors as we do today.
I’m sure Dallas will become a folkhero to some people but not to me. Conservation officers have a duty to do and they shouldn’t have to die for it.
ARE YOU KIDDING!!!
The man shot 2 men…self defense…maybe…but to walk up and put a bullet in their head??? It’s OK because one of them was a pr**k!!!
Not really the “hero” i tell my son to look up to.
Maybe if he takes a 22" brown out-of-season
and gets caught he should just “off” the ranger…he can be a “hero” too!!
bill
I’m with Castwell on this one and hoped this thread would be gone by sun up. Since it’s still here…
Ridiculous. Chalk up another win for the lunatic fringe. People wouldn’t be turning this clown into a folk hero if he was a paper-pusher at some suburban office park. Or a black homeless guy living under a bridge. But this joker is a man’s man, living off the land in the spirit of the Old Wild West. Give me a break.
He broke the law when he trapped those bobcats out of season. He then broke the law again when he shot two law enforcement officers dead and tried to hide his crime. It doesn’t matter if the officers were jerks. I got stopped by a police officer in Detroit once and I thought he was a jerk. Guess what? I didn’t shoot him. Why? Two reasons:
1.) My momma always taught me that you can’t just go around shooting people because you don’t like them or they were mean to you.
2.) The State of Michigan would have certainly stuck a needle in my arm, even if I argued that I was a citizen soldier fighting against the tyranny of an oppressive government blah, blah, blah.
I like wildlife officers. I usually get along pretty well with wildlife officers. Why? Because I don’t break the law, I fish with a license, and I don’t act like an a$$ if an officer asks me a question.
Hey there Pete;
Your comment “hope no one here has a run-in with a bad cop”, well hells bells for some reason I can’t fathom the scenario. Is it maybe that I obey the law and therefor have “no fear”?
Mark
Marco, ask the parents of many little girls (and boys) in Central Oregon about the 4 cops who boinked their children and sold them drugs. The jail they are in now is not enough.
