Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight

Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight
Dallas Stoudenmire
Location	El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas, USA
Date	April 14, 1881
Deaths	4

The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight was a famous gun fight that occurred on April 14, 1881 on El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas. Witnesses generally agreed that the incident lasted no more than five seconds after the first gunshot, though a few would insist it was at least ten seconds. Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire accounted for three of the four fatalities with his twin .44 caliber Smith & Wesson revolvers.

On the day of the gunfight, a posse of about 75 heavily armed Mexicans galloped into El Paso looking for two missing vaqueros named Sanchez and Juarique, who had been searching for 30 head of stolen cattle from Mexico. Solomon Schutz, mayor of El Paso, made an exception for the Mexicans, allowing them to enter the city limits with their firearms. Gus Krempkau, an El Paso County Constable, accompanied the posse to the ranch of Johnny Hale, a local ranch owner and suspected cattle rustler, who lived some 13 miles northwest of El Paso in the Upper Valley. The corpses of the two missing men were located near Hale's ranch and were carried back to El Paso.

A court in El Paso held an inquest into the deaths, with Constable Krempkau, who was fluent in Spanish, acting as an interpreter. The verdict was that Sanchez and Juarique had been in the vicinity of Hale's ranch looking for the stolen cattle. The court determined that the American cattle rustlers, among them Hale, had feared that the men would discover the cattle and return with a larger and armed Mexican force. Two American cattle rustlers, Pervey and Fredericks, were accused of the murders of Sanchez and Juarique after they were overheard bragging about killing two cowboys when they found them trailing the herd to Hale's ranch during the night of April 13 or in the early morning of the 14th.

Meanwhile, a large crowd had gathered in El Paso, including John Hale and his friend, former town Marshal George Campbell. There was tension between some of the Americans, concerned about the Mexicans, with a combination of anger, restlessness, and being heavily armed, becoming explosively violent while demanding a fair justice for their two murdered comrades. At the inquest, Pervey and Fredericks were formally charged with the murders and immediately arrested. Court was adjourned and the crowd dispersed. The arrestees were scheduled for trial at a later date. Having defused an increasing tense situation, the heavily armed Mexicans, now calm, rode atop their horses back to Mexico with the two corpses for proper burial.