 Chafin 's anti @-@ union activities did successfully keep the United Mine Workers out of Logan County , but they also aroused the anger of UMW officials . Chafin also established a record of violent and unpleasant confrontations with union officials outside of Logan County . In one such incident in September 1919 , Chafin entered the office of the UMW in Charleston , West Virginia while he was " drunk armed and very belligerent . " William Petry , the vice @-@ president of the local union , asked Chafin to leave , but Chafin responded by brandishing a revolver . Petry then shot Chafin in the chest with a 22 @-@ caliber pistol . Petry was later cleared of criminal wrongdoing on the grounds that his action was self @-@ defense , but he expressed no remorse about the shooting and later remarked " That 's what happens when a man carries a toy pistol . That goddamned son of a bitch is liable to get well . I should have had my old ' forty @-@ four . ' " In a second shooting incident , a miner walked into Chafin 's sheriff office in Logan and , without a word , shot him in the chest . Chafin walked the two blocks to Logan General Hospital with a bullet lodged in his chest two inches from his heart . In a third incident , a disgruntled constituent walked into his office , with a gun drawn and reportedly said " Don Chafin , I 'm gonna ' shoot you dead . " Chafin reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pistol of his own , and said , " Go ahead . We 'll hop into Hell together . " The man left without firing a shot . 
