bonnie and clyde hope fierro pd. 3. background (bonnie parker) father died when she was 4 years...
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BONNIE AND CLYDE
Hope Fierro pd. 3
BACKGROUND(BONNIE PARKER)
Father died when she was 4 years old.
Her and her family moved in with her
mother's parents.
She married Roy Thornton when she was 16
When Roy was in prison for five years for
robbery, she worked as a waitress
She also did housework for a neighbor, whose
boyfriend was Clyde Barrow. This is when
Bonnie and Clyde met.
BACKGROUND(CLYDE BARROW)
5th child of 7 kids, born to a poor farming family
Clyde attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy when
he was a teenager.
Because he had either malaria or yellow fever he
couldn’t join.
He already had “USN” tattooed on his arm- his
rejection was devastating.
Clyde and his brother supported themselves as
petty thieves• Petty theft: the taking of another person's property
without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
They went on a two year crime spree. (During the
Great Depression- they didn’t have much)
He got arrested, and when he was 21 he vowed to
never go back to jail. Around this time, he met
Bonnie.
BACKGROUND(CLYDE BARROW)
LAW BREAKING
Bonnie was never in trouble with crime before
meeting Clyde.
Clyde had already had a life of crime. • Petty thievery • He went back to jail for burglary after meeting
Bonnie
CLYDE’S CONVICTIONPolice compiled evidence in order to arrest him
Bonnie helped him escape.
He started stealing cars and robbing stores after his escape
He was eventually captured by a passerby
Returned to the Texas jail.
Convicted and sentenced to fourteen years of hard labor at Eastham Prison Farm in Texas
His mother worked out a deal with the judge on his case, and he was eligible for parole in
two years if he showed good behavior.
He didn’t know she was doing this, so he got someone to ‘accidentally’ chop off some of his
toes so that he could be transferred to another, less harsh facility. (the one he was in was
brutal)
Because of his mother, he was released shortly after, in February of 1932.
Convicted: to declare (someone) to be guilty of a criminal offense by the verdict of a jury or the
decision of a judge in a court of law.
Sentenced: to declare the punishment decided for (an offender)
Suspected of murdering two police
officers at Joplin, Missouri
Kidnapping a man and a woman in
rural Louisiana
Bank robberies
Automobile thefts
Murdered a man at Hillsboro, Texas
Committed robberies at Lufkin and
Dallas, Texas
Murdered one sheriff and wounded
another at Stringtown, Oklahoma
CRIMESKidnapped a deputy at Carlsbad, New
Mexico
Stole an automobile at Victoria, Texas
Attempted to murder a deputy at
Wharton, Texas
Committed murder and robbery at
Abilene and Sherman, Texas
Committed murder at Dallas, Texas
Abducted a sheriff and the chief of police
at Wellington, Texas
Committed murder at Joplin and
Columbia, Missouri
EVIDENCE
An officer noticed their car’s out of state license plates (a rare
sight- no money to travel) (1)
The car had been reported as stolen a few days earlier. (2)
The officer found them and confronted them- they kidnapped him.
This incident gave them their infamous reputation.
Clyde made it easier to find evidence because he was getting tired
of committing crimes- he would often leave witnesses. (3)
The witnesses for a lot of the events were the main evidence.
SENTENCE
They ran for a while longer, robbing stores along the way.
They knew they were going to be caught eventually
They visited their families one last time.
Police discovered the their car and followed them.
Without warning the police ambushed them with bullets.
They fired at least 167 bullets at Bonnie and Clyde.
Bonnie and Clyde had finally been caught and killed.
QUOTES
“They don't think they're too smart or desperate.
They know that the law always wins. They've been
shot at before. But they do not ignore that death is
the wages of sin.”
—Bonnie Parker, in her poem, “The Story of Bonnie
and Clyde” Nickname: The Barrow Gang(Bonnie, Clyde, Blanche, Buck, and
W.D. Jones)
CONFLICT THEORY
The Great Depression affected so many people, and 50- 80
percent of people were unemployed. This led people to commit
suicide and submit to terrible things to survive. People mostly
blamed the banks and the government. Bonnie and Clyde rebelled
against the government and robbed banks to take back what was
theirs and killed anybody in their way. Many people saw their
efforts and compared them to Robin Hood’s. They wanted to take
back what was rightfully theirs. I believe the reason for their
deviance was because of the conflict theory. More on the next slide
In this theory, there are four conditions.
One was “because of the limited life chances available to them, members of lower
classes are compelled to engage in criminal behavior.” This is exactly what Bonnie
and Clyde did. They knew they would never be able to have riches and live the
good life, so they tried to steal and live it best they could. Also, one condition is
that “the ruling class defines ‘criminal’ as those behaviors that threaten its
existence.” People of the upper classes (such as the government) considered
everything Bonnie and Clyde did to be criminal. Even though it was criminal, they
failed to see why they did the things they did. Another condition is, “elite use these
definitions to protect its own interests.” In this case, people in the upper classes
considered Bonnie and Clyde to be criminals that deserve death. Bonnie and Clyde
committed the crimes they did because they lost a lot because of the Great
Depression and they wanted to take it back from the government and banks.
CONFLICT THEORY
BOOKS & MOVIES
BOOKS• Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and
Clyde• Running with Bonnie and Clyde: The Ten Fast Years of Ralph
Fults• Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend
MOVIES/ TV• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• Bonnie and Clyde (2013) • TV Mini-Series, “Bonnie & Clyde” (TLC)