American Experience

NARRATOR

Though Clyde would later tell his family that he always preferred to run rather than fight, he was preparing for both. He amassed an arsenal,

including his gun of choice

the massive Browning automatic rifle, or BAR, complete with armor-piercing bullets.

JEFF GUINN

National Guard armories were all over the states. Clyde, on a regular basis, would break in and steal the Browning automatic rifles, the fancy pistols, the good weapons. These weapons were not made available to local law enforcement officials. So if the Barrow Gang was ever in a situation where for some reason they couldn't outdrive pursuit, they would always be in a position to outshoot them.

NARRATOR

What started out as a joyriding romance on the open highways slowly took a darker turn as Clyde began to deploy his deadly force more readily.

L.J. HINTON

Clyde could change at the snap. If you hemmed him up or if you snapped on him first, you had a war on your hands, and the little man knew how to wage war.

NARRATOR

Clyde Barrow and his gang were responsible for the deaths of four men from April 1932 through January 1933. Eugene Moore, an undersheriff in Stringtown, Oklahoma, was gunned down at a community dance. Doyle Johnson was shot in front of his family on Christmas day trying to prevent Clyde from stealing his car. Clyde killed Malcolm Davis, a Fort Worth deputy, with a shotgun blast at point-blank range. Killing an officer of the law meant that, if caught, Clyde would surely face the electric chair.

BUDDY BARROW

I remember his sister asking Clyde how he felt now that he killed someone. He said, "Sis, it makes me sick to my stomach." He said, "They've got guns, I've got guns." You know, "They're trying to kill me and I'm trying to just get away." He says, "I feel bad. It makes me feel sick that I had to take a human life." He said, "But it was them or me."

GUINN

Clyde has a certain personal justification system. From Clyde's perspective, it was simply him reacting to a situation that he couldn't help. From his perspective, he was doing what he had to do.

CLAIRE POTTER

Remember, Clyde says he's never going back to prison. This means if there's a deputy standing between him and freedom, that deputy's going to go.