Was Wyatt Earp a Cold Blooded Murderer?

Indian Charlie was killed at the Spence homestead; but Spence was in jail at the time. However the accounts of the death of Frank Stillwell at the Tucson rail station do leave questions. Earp himself claims he shot Stillwell while the later tried to push the barrel of his shotgun away. All other witnesses claim both Ike Clinton and Stillwell were fleeing the scene when Stillwell stumbled allowing Earp to catch him. Both the Stillwell and Indian Charlie killings have the eerie similarities of men fleeing the Earp posse only to be gunned down. It was said Indian Charlie's body was riddled with bullets. Between that and the close quarters shotgun blast that killed Stillwell; it screams of vengeful/retaliatory murder. Don't forget that Earp surrounded himself with murderers and outlaws; Doc Holiday; Sherman McMaster who purportedly assisted in a jailbreak by Curly Bill Brocius while he was a Texas Ranger; and both Texas Jack Vermillion and jack Johnson (an alias used by Jack Blunt/Blount) both killed men whilst arguing over card games. Interestingly enough; Johnson petitioned Earp to write to the governor to free a man named Bud Blunt/Blount (imprisoned for a shooting) who is assumed to have been Turkey Creek Johnsons' brother. In repayment for this act, he participated in the vendetta ride.

My bad; I meant to write Indian Charlie at Spence ranch.

My need is to see Wyatt Earp as a hero. After much research I conclude he was a man of his times and guilty of murder

On what planet do you ppl live, it was a bad situation populated by bad men who were in the process of Manifest Destiny, which was a nice name for the Genocide of the aboriginal populations. And you’re all upset because a few countrified city dudes start offing each other over mostly nonsense. Where our love affair with fire arms began. Most of what we know of the “old west” comes from Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show reproductions. The lone fast draw contests and only shooting ppl standing up facing you was more of an accident, if it ever happened, usually it was in the back in ambush. So demonizing or glamorizing the death trap that was the “old west” is futile. No one that moved west after the conquest were in line for halos or sainthood. Our history was colored by European arrogance and the colonial logic of “The White Man’s” burden but our track record isn’t one to brag about, as we dropped that burden and just wrapped it in the flag and short memory span. We need better history teachers but I suggest Howard Zinn’s books. One thing said for Earp was he knew fire arms and liquor were a dangerous combination one thing our gun obsessed right wing but jobs have yet to learn.

Murder is a strong word and sometimes misused. Would if make you a murderer if you bombed Iran to stop others planning to murder people in your country? Would you be a murderer if in Rome you killed your captures who enslave and tortured you? How about the Old West when you track down criminals that rob, rape steal and murdered others and you killed them? I guess it could be in the eye of the beholders. Or if you killed an innocent person of any serious crimes whatsoever. Also situations are most important. Such as the time period you are in and to what extent. Also the laws of the land and or territories. If you were a judge that had a criminal hanged that another Judge might give lighter sentence. Murderer? Lawful? Everyone trying to make others from the 1880's and other eras what they wish them to be. I'd say Earp was not an exceptionally nice guy, that is for sure. Judging from the characters of The Old West he did what it took to rid the area of its worst criminals. He done killed em that is for sure. What he could have done differently is beside the point. It's History.

While unique a vendetta ride is not outrageous for those times. So we must take it in context. Of course Wyatt Earp committed murder. Its really not that debatable if you look at the facts. What is debatable is if he played judge and executioner. To me he did. Though I don't think that made him evil. As said above, he was a man of his times who happened to occasionally have a badge and was phenomenal with his weapons and fists. He clearly lived on both sides of law and extracted everything he could out of each.

You cannot think of the earps as 21st century persons. Things were so different and brutal that if we lived in that era, we would have a different mind set. Not enough law to go around in the first place and second lawlessness was rampant. wyatt earp and other officers did what they could....That doesn,t mean they never broke the law, that just means that the old west was a damn hard place to live.

The on thing that no earps fan thinks of is it is not against the law to be armed saddling up to leave town. One other bit of 100% PROOF they were not expecting a fight if they were the rifles on the horses could have wiped the earps out before ever in pistol range. Tom's pistol was found in the saloon proving he was unarmed. A lot of people claim they were Outlaws they were no different than all the other ranchers in the area that had dealings with rustlers to keep their stop from being stolen they were not Rustler's they were ranchers there was never a warrant against any Clanton or any mclaury. They were fancy dressersAnd made thousands in their large ranches legally.

The fact is, Earp and his buddies were no better than the dirtbags they killed. The only difference was who happened to be wearing badges or have "law enforcement powers" at the time. In today's society, Earp and some of his pals would be doing life without parole--or getting the death penalty.

yes, and a lifelong criminal too. far more of a prolific criminal than the clantons. judges, especially back then, typically take the “lawmans” word more than the accused

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/12/wyatt-earp-great-american-villain/

Many of the comments above are made without historical context and based on pure faith, with no real research or understanding of the times. Real research means you follow a certain protocol that is agreed on by professionals. It doesn't mean that you visit a town and read a few historical documents. The intrinsic factor in the Wild West was that the strong or most cunning survived. The rule of law did not exist in the Wild West. Things were not black and white, it was all about survival. Survival many times is found in a situation that is full of fear and panic. I don't believe there were very many shoot outs like the OK Corral. but there was alot of back shooting. The fact that the Earps confronted the Cowboys (who were a loosely knit group of crooks) was noble and if the Earps had disarmed the Cowboys, it would have been just another day in the Wild West. The vendetta ride was that and self protection. They rode seeking vengeance to protect themselves from further harm and murder. This behavior at the time was outwardly spoken against , but pretty much expected. With all that said I think that Wyatt Earp did things to survive in a hostile time. I would have liked to meet Wyatt Earp. I think he would be a fascinating person.

Wyatt Earp = murderer
George Armstrong Custer = mass murderer

enough said.

Wyatt Earp nothin but a murderer just like George A. Custer was a mass murderer

People need to quit taking what they see in the movies as fact and do some research.
The law was not always around and what was there was a lot of corruption.
Mostly those towns were small and as in some country towns even today most of the population were related to each other. I lived in a town such as that. If you were an outsider you had to watch what you said about you said about someone because you could be talking to that person's kin. Back then and on into the last century people lived and died by the feud. Because as the case of the Hatfields and the McCoys there was no justice thru the courts, because of the reason I just stated. So they had to take the law into their own hands. In the "old west" the one with the money had the run of the courts, politicians etc. It was that way in Lincoln County, New Mexico were Billy to the Kid and his men were from. Also the range wars in Wyoming and so on. You can not understand what really happened over a hundred years if you do not realize that that was a different time and a different age. It was wide open territory. Your nearest neighbor might have been 10 miles away. People had to protect their family, livestock and possession with a gun.

Background: Now retired and resigned from the Bar so no longer a lawyer, but i spent over 30 years packing a Bar Card and a lot of my time was spent doing criminal defense. That doubtless affects the way I look at a lot of things, including the Earp-Clanton dispute.

So - nobody here was there, nobody here has first-hand knowledge of the people or events. We all have to go on accounts (some by participants or witnesses, most of whom had reason to tell it one way or another, and not necessarily the truth).

So - I've been in Tombstone and compared the ground with accounts (including Spicer's from the "trial" he conducted, PROBABLY the best on timing and geography). Have read many literary accounts. And reached some conclusions. These include that the Clantons, Ringo (actually, apparently, Ringgold and a killer from the Mason County "Hoodoo War' feud in Texas), and the other "Cowboys" were bad and wicked people, cattle rustlers and raiders of Mexican smuggling caravans. "Old Man" Clanton was apparently killed by Mexicans who objected to the raiding. They weren't much worse than a lot of other folks, and crossed the wrong bunch when they tangled with the Earps.

Another was that the Earps, Holiday, and friends (Buckskin Frank Leslie, et al) were nobody to cross. Holiday didn't, probably, kill many people. Two for sure, probably a few beyond that, but unquestionably a man who didn't see any future for himself and apparently didn't care. Not about himself and apparently not many others . I've known people like that, they are apt to be dangerous. And poor folk to be around.

So - OK Corral. Both parties were more than ready to have what Charlie Askins used to call a serious social dispute. Neither really much expected it that day (especially Ike, who ran - smart of him), but when they encountered one another, they dealt with the matter with guns. One of the MacLaurys was, I think, the fella who lit the fuze by trying to pull a rifle (getting a rifle was a good idea IMO, long guns are usually better; a machine gun better still if you have one), but the Earp grup did a better job. There after, Cowboy (Clanton) faction went for the Earps and crippled one and killed another (ambushes). Wyatt and a number of friends went for the other side, not wanted to get murdered themselves. In the course of the so-called "Vengeance Ride' they killed or scared a bunch of the Cowboys and then left Arizona. never to return (and with warrants outstanding, warrants nobody ever seemed to try and execute).

Admirable people? Not particularly. Heroes? Don't think so. Would I have represented Wyatt if I'd been a lawyer back then? Sure, if he hired me.

People, Wyatt was only what the media made of him. Only what Hollywood wants to make him out to be. In truth. He was a pimp, he ran girls in Dodge city. that is where he meet and hooked up with Mattie. But this was common back then in those days. Wyatt had it in for the Cowboys and Sheriff Behan. Wyatt was mad because Behan won the election for sheriff in Cochise County. Behan had told Wyatt he would make him First Deputy. But when Behan won, he did not come threw on his promise. Wyatt was never famous before the Gunfight, none of the were. This didn't happen until lake wrote a book in 1931. Then the movie "Frontier Marshal". that is what really made Wyatt and Doc famous. They didn't even call it Gunfight at the O.K. Corral until 1957 when John ford made the movie with that name. from then on people started referring it to the Gunfight of the o.K. Corral. It really happen by C,S, Fly's photography studio. So, Gunfight at Fly's doesn't have the same ring to it. the fact is, famous, no, maybe in Tombstone, but elsewhere, no. That happy many many years later, and many many many many different versions.

Did wyatt earp kill any other people before dodge city or after tombstone, according to a quote from Glen g boyer he says he killed an extra 2 people besides george hoyt, 3 ok corral men, and the 4 vendetta ride cowboys.