Talk:Earl Durand

contesting the content

it bears mention the inaccuracies in your article. Much of your documentation is 'heresay', so,as a distant relative of Earl Durand, I would like to point out that the deputy shot in front of his parents home was done as a last resort of self defense, and to defend his family, when law 'enforcement' opened fire indiscriminately. It was never, ever his desire to hurt or kill anyone...he was essentially a very peaceful man who cared about his community...remember, all of this began when he was poaching wild game to feed starving people in his community, to which the law turned a blind eye...until he and some of his friends made the mistake of accidentally (?) shooting someone's cow. During those last days, he was forced to defend himself. During the shootout where Orville Linaberry and Arthur Argento were killed, there is at least a 75 percent chance that they were killed by friendly fire...a fact that even those who were present admitted, as they agreed that it was dark, they were all frightened, inexperienced, and "shooting at shadows". The alleged attempt at robbing the bank is also a falsehood, as there is absolutely NO proof that his intention was to rob the bank at all, although he did have a bit of an arrogant wiseguy streak and thoroughly enjoyed teasing and taunting the local authorities, much to their embarassment and bruised pride. He did NOT 'level his gun' at Tip Cox, witnesses inside the bank at the time stated that he was trying to defend them from the crazed vigilantes outside, firing blindly inside the building, and that Earl tried desperately to help get them safely out of the building before any more innocent lives were lost. It is very easy to imagine that he may have been trying to fire his gun to defend, protect, or even warn, just as easily as you apparently feel that he meant harm, which, again, there is no proof to support. The bank president, though claiming 15 minutes of fame, did not kill Earl Durand...Earl's own bullet did that...this animal shot into a corpse. Representatives from my family, including my father attended the screening of the movie in Powell, I remember it vividly. While many people left, many also remained. The community was very divided by the actions that had occurred...Earl...supposedly a bloodthirsty murderer...had saved many of their lives by hand delivering poached meat to them during the Depression, and although some have claimed that there were 'legal means' he could have engaged in to help the starving, jobless people in his community, that is quite frankly, false. Sadly, as time wears on, those of us who are able to recount what we know of the story are gone, leaving people to guess, or misrepresent the truth, and someone who deserves to have what was good about him remembered, will go unrecognized as anything other than a monster, which is a very small part of who the man was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Travis Durand (talk • contribs)

note: the above was originally placed in the article itself [1] by @Travis Durand:. I have edited the article to have inline citations for every claim. None of the sources I came across support the general gist of the above. If you have reliably published sources that can verify, we can see whether they are appropriate views to include. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)