{"id":3190,"date":"2015-05-29T08:16:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T12:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=3190"},"modified":"2015-05-29T08:16:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T12:16:03","slug":"a-lawman-who-knew-his","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/a-lawman-who-knew-his\/","title":{"rendered":"A LAWMAN WHO KNEW HIS\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My \u201cAyoob Files\u201d continuing series in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/americanhandgunner.com\/barricaded-the-elfego-baca-story\/\" target=\"_blank\">American Handgunner<\/a> <\/em>magazine covers in the current issue the legendary 1884 siege in which Elfego Baca holed up with a pair of revolvers and held off a vengeful gang of cowboys who pumped some 4,000 bullets into the shack where he had taken refuge.\u00a0 Unlikely as it sounds, history shows that\u2019s pretty much how the thing went down.<\/p>\n<p>In researching the shootout, I followed up on Baca\u2019s later life, which included time as an elected county sheriff, and as an attorney.\u00a0 (And a few more gunfights.)\u00a0 It turns out that Baca was an innovative fellow.<\/p>\n<p>In one case, as sheriff he was conducting a murder investigation.\u00a0 Fresh human feces were found near the death scene.\u00a0 He instructed a deputy to collect it and put it in a tin can.\u00a0 Before long, he came upon a likely suspect, who became so nervous during Baca\u2019s interrogation that he felt a sudden urge to relieve himself.\u00a0 Baca allowed him to do so, and then once again ordered a deputy to \u201ccan it,\u201d so to speak.<\/p>\n<p>An unusual pattern of chili seeds was present in both fecal samples.\u00a0 There was no DNA testing in those days, of course, but by the standards of the time, Baca\u2019s thinking was positively Sherlockian.\u00a0 Today, it would be seen as crappy evidence in more ways than one and might not meet the standard of a \u201creasonable degree of scientific certainty,\u201d but back then it was enough to convict the suspect of murder.<\/p>\n<p>Forgive a crude reference from common parlance, but one could say that Sheriff Elfego Baca was certainly a lawman who knew his shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My \u201cAyoob Files\u201d continuing series in American Handgunner magazine covers in the current issue the legendary 1884 siege in which Elfego Baca holed up with a pair of revolvers and held off a vengeful gang of cowboys who pumped some 4,000 bullets into the shack where he had taken refuge.\u00a0 Unlikely as it sounds, history [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}