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- Elfego Baca
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- New Mexico Centennial
Socorro County Sheriff Elfego Baca and the shootout in San Francisco Plaza
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Transcript
In October 1884, newly deputized peace officer Elfego Baca got word of drunken cowboys shooting up the town of Lower San Francisco Plaza, south of Reserve, some 130 miles away. Arriving on the scene, Baca arrested a cowboy named Charlie McCarty. McCarty’s fellow cowboys attempted to negotiate his release but Baca opened fire on them, killing one. Baca took refuge with his prisoner in a nearby home until he was ordered by justice of the peace, Ted White, to bring McCarty in for trial. White freed McCarty and Baca left the court with McCarty’s pistol and took refuge in an adobe and wood shack. Baca was ordered to return for questioning about his killing of the cowboy, but he refused and shot at the men who broke down the door of the shack, killing local rancher Bert Hearne.
The forty or so cowboys outside returned fire and over the next 33 hours fired more than 4,000 rounds into the...
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