Gunfight at the O.K. Corral the law in their favor when it affected their gambling and saloon interests, which earned them further enmity with the Cowboy faction. To reduce crime in Tombstone, on April 19, 1881, the city council passed ordinance 9, requiring anyone carrying a bowie knife, dirk, pistol or rifle to deposit their weapons at a livery or saloon soon after entering town. The ordinance was the legal basis for City Marshal Virgil Earp's decision to confront the Cowboys on the day of the shootout. In the borderlands south of Tombstone there was only one passable route between Arizona and Mexico, a passage
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral were killed. Ike Clanton subsequently filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday. The lawmen were exonerated by a local justice of the peace after a 30-day preliminary hearing and then by a local grand jury. The gunfight was not the end of the conflict. On December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt by the Cowboys. On March 18, 1882, a Cowboy fired from a dark alley through the glass door of a Campbell & Hatch’s saloon and billiard parlor, killing Morgan Earp. The suspects in both incidents furnished alibis supplied by other