Posted on 11/22/2004 7:20:55 AM PST by Rio
BIRCHWOOD, Wis. - A deer hunter shot and killed five people and wounded three others in northwestern Wisconsin following a dispute about a tree stand during the hunt's opening weekend, authorities said.
The 36-year-old alleged gunman was arrested Sunday afternoon, Sawyer County sheriff's officials said. Jake Hodgkinson, a deputy at the county jail, identified the suspect as Chai Vang but would give no additional details.
Paul Schnell, a spokesman for the St. Paul, Minn., police department, said the man was from St. Paul.
The incident began when two hunters were returning to their rural cabin on private land in Sawyer County when they saw the suspect in one of their hunting platforms in a tree, County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle said. A confrontation and shooting followed.
It's not known who shot first, Zeigle said.
Both hunters were wounded and one of them radioed to the cabin a quarter mile away. Other hunters responded and were shot. About 20 shots were fired, but it's unclear who shot them, he said.
The dead included a a teenage boy and a woman, Zeigle said. A father and son were among them, he said. Some of the victims were shot more than once.
All five, from the Rice Lake area, were dead when officers arrived to the area in southwestern Sawyer County, he said. Authorities found two bodies near each other and the others were scattered over 100 yards.
"It's absolutely nuts. Why? Over sitting in a tree stand?" asked Zeigle.
Zeigle said the suspect was "chasing after them and killing them," with a SKS 7.62 mm semiautomatic rifle, a common hunting weapon. Wisconsin's statewide deer gun hunting season started Saturday and lasts for nine days.
Two young people who stayed in the cabin emerged safely after the shootings.
The suspect, who did not have a compass, got lost in the woods and two hunters, not knowing about the shootings, helped him find his way out, Zeigle said. When he emerged, a Department of Natural Resources officer recognized the deer license on his back, given to police by a victim, Zeigle said.
The man was out of bullets and was arrested, Zeigle said.
One of the injured hunters was in critical condition at St. Joseph's Hospital. Another was listed in serious condition and the third was in fair condition, both at Lakeview Medical Center.
Hunter Bill Wagner, 72, of Oshkosh, was about two miles away near Deer Lake with a party of about 20 other hunters. After they got word of the shooting, he and others went to round up the rest of the party. He said they heard sirens, planes and helicopters and noticed the surrounding roads blocked off.
"When you're hunting you don't expect somebody to try to shoot you and murder you," he said. "You have no idea who is coming up to you."
It took about three hours to round up the other hunters, who were up to four miles apart, Wagner said. "We're all old, dyed-in-wool hunters," he said. "We wouldn't go home because of this but we will keep it in our minds. We're not forgetting it."
Don’t blame you. I have an affinity for the old M1 Garand, myself.
Be interesting if that “goofy looking easterner” you saw is the same guy. Well, we’re more likely to find out what happened here than on TV.
Standing by . . .
http://www.wisinfo.com/heraldtimes/news/archive/local_16825591.shtml
I don't know what Hmong refugees are but he might be one of them. The above is a link I got when I did a search on his name.
i have a SKS with a scope and it is a good hunting rifle. i also have a 221, 270, and a 284. all with scopes so i just grab the first one i see.
A man by the name of Chai Vang is mentioned in this article...
http://www.shepherd-express.com/shepherd/20/02/headlines/cover_story.html
Note the frequent references to welfare payments....
Out of curiosity, it the gun illegal or the cartridge. They're not uncommon to see in Wisconsin.
I don't even believe this guy was there to hunt deer.
I suspect he just wanted to have himself a little shooting spree. What better place than out in the woods, picking off some hunters.
This makes it more of a sport than simply walking into the post office, or MacDonalds. Definitely not a "hunting incident", as it is being portrayed.
Some years ago I shot a deer with my Mini-30, which uses the same ammo as the SKS. I was using 123-grain soft-point ammo loaded by some outfit in Georgia. The bullet hit right where I aimed (the lungs), but didn't expand...it just punched a neat 30-caliber hole through the deer. This was at sunset in the rain. The doe ran into a thicket of oak saplings and I thought we'd never find her. Fortunately, the fellow who invited me was an expert tracker, and we found the deer. However, I swore off any 7.62X39 gun for deer hunting after that. Now, I always use something that pokes a big hole (12-gauge shotgun or .50-caliber muzzle-loader) so I have a good blood trail to follow, if need be.
He wasn't hunting with an SKS. He left the stand, went to his car and got an SKS, then returned and started shooting people. One story I read said he followed their tracks through the snow and gunned them down as he found them.
Neither one . . . the legality is concerned with how many rounds are in the gun (and the type of bullet – military type full metal jacket is prohibited). It’s probably not the same everywhere, but three rounds is the limit here.
Yes, he is a Hmong. These people fought on our side in Vietnam (they are mountain tribesmen who are not ethnically Vietnamese), and after the war, a lot of them came here.
Pretty much the only thing the state gets upset about is wasting meat. Road hunting, by boat on the river is the norm. Nobody has even heard about people dressed in orange. Most all the rural people use old military guns and the natives are awful tough to beat with peep sights. We live 185 miles down a dirt road that is closed from oct until may every winter. Usually I take my AR-15 with team sling and ride snowmachine down road until I catch caribou crossing during their migration. Would never even think about shooting one 25 yards off the gravel.
If I ever went back east to go hunting, I'd probably make the news pretty quick. Probably all comes down to how many people live back in Pa.
Both gun and cartridge (.30 cal.) are legal in Wisconsin, but there might be some problem with the magazine; in Michigan for example, you can't take more than a 5-rd mag into the woods.
Well, now I’m very curious about this.
Shooting other hunters is not legal, nor is hunting posted land without permission.
Folks here seem to be getting sidetracked about the rifle, and not about the criminal actions of the bearer.
Understood. FMJ is illegal, and I've known hunters with an SKS to attrack a warden's attention, to check the ammo. I'm not aware of any restriction on magazine size, so if there is one it's large enough to have missed my attention, no where near three. Are you required to alter magazines to a 2/3 round capacity?
Just a guess, but probably both the rifle and the cartridge are okay - or at least legal - for deer hunting in Wisconsin. There might be a magazine capacity limit issue, though - I know that there are aftermarket 5-round magazines available for the SKS, and probably "capacity restrictor blocks" that can be stuffed down into the standard 10-round fixed magazine.
I'm not surprised to see mention made of the SKS as a "hunting rifle"; lots of people bought 'em as their first step up from a .22 - mainly because of the ridiculously low price tag. Personally, I think there's some merit to the suspicion that the SKS imports were part of a Chinese plot to destroy American marksmanship (ever feel an SKS' trigger pull?).
This incident illustrates that battle rifles need not be minute-of-angle accurate.
VA's definitely more enlightened than PA is. I think NJ has the same dumbs regs as we do.
They're definitely both OK in Wisconsin, the only applicable restriction I'm aware of is on FMJ ammunition, which is across the board. There's no magazine capacity restriction I'm aware of, though a 10+ regulation wouldn't have caught my attention anyway.
I'd love to use my Class III AR-10, but it's verboten here in PA.
If you ever get back this way, look me up. We'll take my new Barrett M82A1 .50cal BMG out for a spin at the nearby 1,000yd
range.
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