Clock Shooter Pays Price

Clock Shooter Pays $100 for Moment’s Fun

Mechanic Fined After Plea Of Guilty to “Killing Time” at Bar.

It cost J. B. Topp, Yakima, Wash., mechanic, just $100 to kill time in Missoula Thursday night. Time’s sudden demise came at the Rex bar when Topp pumped three bullets into a wall clock. To do things up in style, Topp also shot out a couple of light globes. These were for good measure, he said.

Topp, who smiled sheepishly in police court where he was arraigned on a disturbance charge before Police Judge Hugh B. Campbell, explained the events leading up to the weird finale.

“We were talking about Buffalo Bill. One fellow said he rode a bay horse. I said he rode a buckskin. We got talking about his marksmanship. Then somebody said he bet I couldn’t shoot as well as Buffalo Bill. I went out to the car and got my gun.” He looked pleadingly at the police judge. “I don’t know what in the world made me do it,” he interspersed. “Well, anyway, I shot out two lights. Then I shot the clock. Then some woman came over to the bar. She slapped my face and said: ‘Put that gun down, do you want to hurt somebody?’”

Topp, who officers said was “better than a green hand” when it came to bullseyes, was doing his fancy-work with a .22-caliber woodsman’s pistol.

Judge Campbell fined him $100, suspended a 90-day jail sentence with the provision Topp leave town in four hours.

“Thanks, judge,” said the male Annie Oakley. “Gosh, I don’t know why in the world I did it,” he muttered, and left the city jail.

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on May 7, 1938.

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