Dick Bullard, a Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer was killed on January 4, 1902, near Lame Deer on the Northern Cheyenne Agency. He and several officers rode out to take a man into custody after reports that cattle had been illegally slaughtered and the meat stolen on the reservation. The officers first tried to have the man come to the agency to talk, but he had threatened an officer who approached him alone. When the detail returned to make the arrest, the encounter turned volatile: as the officers spoke with the man at his tepee, his wife stepped outside holding a knife, and the man raised a rifle and opened fire. The shot struck Bullard, mortally wounding him. In the confusion that followed, the remaining officers pulled back from the camp, their attempt to bring the suspect in having suddenly become a gun battle.
The killing ended the brief pursuit of the cattle-theft suspect but not the search for accountability.
Contemporary summaries and memorial records identify Bullard's death as a line-of-duty shooting tied to that arrest attempt on the Tongue River Agency. Those accounts further note that the “suspect info” in the case is recorded as deceased, a stark coda that leaves little indication of any subsequent formal arrest or trial. No later reports of charges or convictions tied to the shooting have surfaced in the commonly cited memorial records for the incident.
Bullard's death has been preserved in roll calls of officers lost in 1902 and in community memorials for victims of gun violence in Lame Deer. These references consistently place the scene at Lame Deer, confirm the date, and preserve the essential outline: a theft investigation, an attempted arrest at a family camp, and a fatal rifle shot that cut down an agency policeman. The archival trail is sparse on personal details—his age is not reported in these sources—but the narrative of the incident endures through official remembrances and public memorial listings.
Victim demographics and basic case identifiers in modern compilations track with these memorial records, listing Bullard as male and White/Caucasian, with the date and place of death matching the agency's location at Lame Deer. Those compilations echo the same through-line: the officers came to make an arrest for cattle killing and meat theft; a confrontation at the tepee escalated; Bullard was fatally shot; and the suspect is recorded as deceased, with no arrests noted thereafter.
