Silas W. "Cy" Cope, Assistant Chief Of Police

Wewoka Police Department

On January 29, 1928, Cope had accompanied Seminole County Deputy Sheriff Bud Gordon in taking a mental patient to the state hospital in Norman. On the way back the officers stopped about 5:30 P.M. to eat in Saint Louis, an oil boomtown, eight miles from Maud. As the officers were leaving the restaurant, someone open fire on them from ambush. Cope was hit three times and Deputy Gordon returned fire but the man escaped. Cope was taken to the hospital but died at 7 P.M. that evening. A bootlegger named T. F. “Red” Griffin was later convicted of the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Joseph W. Cotton, Chief of Police

Wewoka Police Department

Chief Cotton rode with Officer Carl Sullinger about 7:15 P.M., Saturday, June 27, 1953, to a disturbance call involving a mental patient named Joe Sisney, 60, who was carrying a 16-gauge shotgun. As the officers pulled up in front of the house, Sisney opened fire on them. The first shot blew out one of the police car’s windows and hit Cotton in the head and Sullinger in the shoulder. The two officers got out of the car, took cover on the driver’s side and returned fire. At one point Chief Cotton raised up to shoot and was wounded in the face by another shotgun blast and was killed. A wife, two sons and a daughter survived Chief Cotton.