Ranger Shoots Club-Wielding Camper to Death After Call About Domestic Disturbance

Associated Press ^ | Jul 28, 2005 | Jeff Barnard

[Pharmboy]

CRATER LAKE, Ore. (AP) - A camper brandished a club and threatened to kill two park rangers, then was shot dead by one of them, a park spokesman said Thursday. The man encountered the rangers as they answered a call about a domestic disturbance at a campground at Crater Lake National Park after dark Wednesday, said park spokesman Mac Brock.

When the rangers tried to talk to the man, he became increasingly hostile and wandered around the campsite despite orders to stay still, Brock said.

"Still brandishing the club, still ignoring warnings to stop, he directly approached the rangers and threatened to kill them," Brock said.

When the man came within 10 feet of one of the rangers, the ranger used pepper spray, but the man didn't stop, and the second ranger shot him twice, Brock said.

The man, whose name was withheld pending notification of next of kin, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Tim Hughes and his family from San Demas, Calif., were camping nearby.

"This guy was way out of control," said Hughes, whose wife and children were inside their trailer at the time. "They did all they could to try to get the guy to cooperate, but he was just gone. I think he must have been on narcotics, because he didn't exhibit rational behavior."

The rangers remained on duty, but were not in the field. Their names were not released.

Brock said the shooting was the first he had heard of in 12 years at the park. Shootings in national parks are rare, occurring about every 10 years, said David Barna, the National Park Service's chief of public affairs in Washington, D.C.

[csvset]

Ranger shoots, kills man at Crater Lake

Friday, July 29, 2005 12:14 AM PDT

	Investigators collect evidence at a campsite in Crater Lake National Park, where a park ranger shot and killed a camper who had become agitated. A white outline, visible in the foreground, indicates where the man's body fell.

Published Friday July 29, 2005

By LEE JUILLERAT

CRATER LAKE - An armed ranger at Crater Lake National Park shot and killed a camper who had become agitated and made death threats late Wednesday night.

Reports by park spokesmen and an eyewitness indicate the man ignored efforts by two law enforcement rangers to get him to stop making threats while walking around the Mazama Campground about 10 p.m.

The rangers drove to the campground in response to a domestic dispute that interrupted a campfire program - ironically titled "The Beauty of Crater Lake" - at the nearby amphitheater.

Park spokesmen and witnesses said the camper was brandishing a large club when he threatened to kill the rangers. One ranger used pepper spray when the man came within 10 feet of the rangers.

When he continued to charge, the second ranger fired two shots. The man was declared dead on the road near his Loop D-19 campsite.

The name of the man was withheld pending notification of his next of kin. The names of the rangers involved are not being released by the National Park Service. Neither ranger was injured.

Tim Hughes, a resident of San Dimas, Calif., was camped with his wife and four children in a campsite beside the man. He described the man as "big, strapping, tattooed, shirtless, a little bit odd - not the family type."

"This guy, he just went over the edge," Hughes said Thursday afternoon while preparing to move his family to another campsite.

At the urging of another person attending the campfire program, ranger Mike Cook listened to the commotion then called for law enforcement rangers.

Hughes said it sounded as though things had calmed down for a while, until he walked past the trailer where the man was camped.

"I could hear him (the victim) launching F-words. I thought, 'Of all the campsites, why does he have to be next to us?' "

Hughes gathered his family inside their popout camper while he remained outside and waited for rangers to arrive.

"They tried to get the guy to cooperate, but he didn't want to have nothing to do with it. I said, 'Do you want to go to jail?' He said, 'Do you want to die?' I knew something was really wrong."

The woman inside the trailer came out screaming, Hughes said.

''She went running up to the guy and said, 'You've ... killed him,'' Hughes said. ''She was hugging the guy."

After the incident, Hughes and his family left the park and stayed overnight at the Wilson Cottages near Fort Klamath. The Hughes are on a camping vacation that started Sunday in Ukiah, Calif. They spent two nights at Del Norte Redwoods State Park near Eureka, Calif., before arriving at Crater Lake Wednesday afternoon.

"Last night was very unsettling. It was difficult sleeping," Hughes said. "That's why we need to leave this site."

"Other than the fact that there was a lot of screaming and shouting, we really didn't know what was going on," said Lee Schiefelbein of Fort Lewis, Wash., who was camping with her husband Mike and their son and daughter.

Like the Hughes family, the Schiefelbein family attended Cook's campfire program. After the shooting, most other campers were allowed to return their sites. The Schiefelbeins, who were in another campsite next to the victim, were kept away from the scene by Cook and eventually taken to the Mazama Village store. They were allowed to return to their campsite about 3 a.m. Thursday.

"We're going to try to carry on," Lee Schiefelbein said Thursday afternoon before the family headed out for sightseeing. The family is on a 10-day camping trip.

"It's just peaceful here. It's ironic, what happened last night," Mike Schiefelbein said. "It's not the park's fault."

Park spokesmen Mack Brock said 152 of Mazama's campsites, with 424 people, were occupied. Loop D is near the amphitheater and the Annie Creek Canyon trail, and has several sites that overlook the canyon.

Brock said park officials and staff from Xanterra, the park concessionaire, made arrangements to house campers immediately adjacent to the shooting scene.

During a Thursday morning staff meeting, Brock said park Superintendent Chuck Lundy assured staff that the two rangers were not injured.

"You know the Park Service. We're a tight-knit group," Brock said, adding the rangers were doing "as well as could be expected."

"These guys have to be ready for these kind of things. They're trained just like any other police officers, but they're not city police officers."

An autopsy will be done. Along with trying to wrap up the investigation, which is being done by special agents and rangers with the National Park Service along with Oregon State Police, Brock said efforts were aimed at returning the park to its usual summer calm.

"This is a tragic event and we have to be supportive of our staff and our visitors and still go and manage the park," Brock said.

[csvset]

Fatal Shooting At Crater Lake
July 29, 2005 - 8:11AM

A criminal investigation is underway after a ranger shot and killed a camper at Crater Lake National Park.

It started around ten Wednesday night as a domestic disturbance call at Mazama campground. Two rangers say that when they got there, the man was standing outside the trailer at his campsite armed with a large wooden club. Rangers say the man started arguing with them wandering around the campsite; being loud, threatening, and argumentative.

Then the rangers say he came directly up to them and threatened to kill them. One ranger tried to use pepper spray to calm him down but say it didn't work... That's when the other ranger shot and killed him.

A park spokesperson describes the club the man held “It's described as a large club somewhere around 2 feet long but not just a stick of firewood, something meant to do harm.”

The "crime scene investigation unit", with Oregon State Police, was on scene yesterday collecting evidence. Both rangers involved are still on duty but won't be going out in the field until the investigation is over.

A park spokesperson says that's standard procedure any time their law enforcement rangers use a deadly force.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Better than this scenario


"1 park Ranger was clubbed to death today in an incident reported as a domestic disturbance. 1 other Ranger is in the hospital with massive head injuries. A camper in a nearby site who tried to assist the officers is also in critical condition tonite with head injuries. The Perpetrator has not yet been found."

I prefer the former

[Pharmboy]

If that happened, those guys should not have been park rangers in the first place, eh? Two rangers against one guy and rangers lose?

[Pharmboy]

The Taser does stuff to your nerve-muscle junction that you just can't ignore or go crazy through. From a Taser site:

The 50,000 volt Taser, with it's more powerful 18 to 26 watt pulse disrupts the central nervous system and directly controls the skeletal muscles causing an uncontrollable contraction of the muscle tissue. The EMD effect overrides voluntary muscle control, even among pain-tolerant, aggressive combatants. The subject will be quickly immobilized and on the ground.

[SLB]

I know two rangers from Mammoth Cave and one from the Lincoln Home in Hodgenville. They have meth problems that are mind boggling. Mammoth Cave has placed some areas "off limits" due to the problems with meth labs being set up on the fringes of the park and tourists wondering in to the "kill zone" the dealers have set up.

[Mulder]

A warning shot might have done the trick...or a shot in the leg

You've been watching too much TV.

I'm no fan of the police (in general), but it appears they were clearly justified in this situation. They even have an eye-witness to back them up.

A club is a deadly weapon, and one blow in the right place can kill a man or render him a vegetable for the rest of his life. Verbally threatening someone with a club and physically moving towards them demonstrates an intent to use that deadly weapon. As such, this was a good shoot. The only mistake they made was letting the guy get that close. He easily could have struck them, even after being shot multiple times, from that close distance.

Just because someone is police officer doesn't mean that they surrender their Right to defend their life with deadly force.

Maybe those bozos at Interior will now rescind the administrative rules against us peasants carrying guns in parks.

[Pharmboy]

I would agree with you if the ranger was solo. He was not. Two rangers should have gotten the job done without killing him.

[Mulder]

I would agree with you if the ranger was solo. He was not. Two rangers should have gotten the job done without killing him.

So ranger #1 takes a beating from a club, while ranger #2 tackles the thug and winds up getting stuck with an AIDS infected drug needle? I don't think so.

[Pharmboy]

No need to take beating. These people are allegedly trained in self defense. And, there were two of them there. And what about Tasers? Did they not have them? We will agree to disagree since this is going nowehere.

[ASA Vet]

From the article: The man, whose name was withheld pending notification of next of kin,

With whom was the deceased having a "domestic disturbance?"

[Jeff Head]

Wow, quite a bit of doisagreement on this thread.

FWIW, and form my own perspective (having been attacked once upon a time by a man weilding a club)...the guy got exactly what he should have gotten.

He was threatening the officers both verbally telling them he was going to kill them and approaching them menacingly with the means to do so, he would not obey their directions, he came at them and their attempts to use non-lethal force (per what both PharmBoy and JR indicate they would have liked to have seen the officers try) failed, and so, when he continued approaching with a deadly weapon (and a club is a deadly weapon), they shot him...and they shot to stop. Ten feet is a short space and their lives were definitely in danger.

In my instance, it was an early instance of road rage in 1982. I took a hit to the head from a deflected piece of the club that the guy swing through the window at me and I barely avoided. A piece broke off when it hit the door frame, ricocheted, and it broke my orbital bone, my nose, and my glasses put a deep cut above my eye. I lived to talk about it...and actually chased down the perp in his car with my auto and when he wrecked, held him for the police. I will tell you now, if I had, had a gun, I would have done all in my power to shoot the guy dead. He (like this guy) was out of control and my life was in danger and was preserved mainly by the grace of God...and a quick, lucky movement of my head.

BTW, the guy assaulted me, trying to kill me, because he thought I had cut him off in traffic two days earlier, 50 miles from that scene. On the day he was talking about, I was at the hospital all day with my wife when she delivered our third child.

[Doc Savage]

Dead Man Clubbing?....You can bring a club to a gun fight or a gun club to a fight, but never bring a club gun to a fight unless the club President knows you have it.

[Doc Savage]

A virus is loose in America. Infected people flee from police cars all over California. When told to stop by police the infectees continue to either run away or charge the police. When told to put their hands up they reach for a gun. When subdued on the ground by twelve cops they contine to struggle and aasault the police.

Is there something about the word STOP that these maniac morons don't understand. A cop ever tells me to stop and I can assure you I will turn to petrified stone and do exactly as I'm told.

[Pharmboy]

Quite a story, JH. Glad to hear it had a better ending than it could have.

My point has been two rangers against one perp--was deadly force necessary? The consensus on FR appears to be "Kill the SOB!" OK...I can live with that.

[SerpentDove]

>>This was a domestic disturbance, and bear jockeys and camper wranglers haven't been trained to deal with this sort of thing.<<

Are you sure that they didn't go through police training? I would be *very* surprised to find they hadn't.

[verity]

They were correct. Let God sort it out.

[Pharmboy]

Your opinion is in the overwhelming majority. I will NEVER raise a club against a Freeper--LOL!

[verity]

You have noticed the dearth of compassion? ;-)