Russell "Slim Gray" Gibson (died January 8, 1935) was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw associated with Alvin Karpis

Alvin Karpis

Alvin Francis Karpis , nicknamed "Creepy" for his sinister smile, was an American criminal known for his alliance with the Barker gang in the 1930s. He was the last "public enemy" to be taken.-Early life:Karpis was born to Lithuanian immigrants in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and was raised in Topeka,...

 and the Barker Gang during the late 1920s and 1930s. Gibson spent much of his early criminal career with the Central Park Gang based in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...

 which included the Barkers, Volney Davis

Volney Davis

Volney Curley Davis was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. A longtime Oklahoma bandit, he was the boyfriend of Edna Murray and an associate of both the John Dillinger and Alvin Karpis-Barker gangs during the 1930s.-Biography:Born in Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma, Volney Davis's...

, Ray Terrill and other local criminal figures. He participated in his first major robbery when he teamed with Neal Merritt and James "Cowboy" Long to rob a bank messenger in Oklahoma City

Oklahoma city

Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...

 of $75,000. Gibson was arrested for this robbery but escaped from county jail prior to his trial.

He later joined up with the Karpis-Barker Gang and participated in numerous bank robberies with them. He, like the rest of the gang, was tracked down by the FBI during early-1935. Federal agents managed to trace him and his wife to a Chicago hideout used by the Barkers and raided the apartment building on January 8, 1935. The raid was bungled from the start as the FBI set off tear gas in the wrong apartment causing a panic among the tenants. When local police officers arrived on the scene, they nearly opened fire on federal agents whom they believed were gangsters. Hoping to escape in the confusion, Gibson attempted to make it to the fire escape

Fire escape

A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency that makes the stairwells inside a building inaccessible...

 armed with a Browning automatic rifle

Browning Automatic Rifle

The Browning Automatic Rifle was a family of United States automatic rifles and light machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and designed...

 and a .32 caliber pistol. FBI agents were waiting for Gibson however and opened fire. Despite wearing a bulletproof vest

Bulletproof vest

A ballistic vest, bulletproof vest or bullet-resistant vest is an item of personal armor that helps absorb the impact from firearm-fired projectiles and shrapnel from explosions, and is worn on the torso...

, the agents high-powered rifles killed him instantly. His wife and two others were arrested on charges for harboring a fugitive.