Replies

Hi everyone. I live here in Moscow, ID. In fact Paul was a friend of ours and had been our neighbor for some time. It is partially for his sake that I am writing this.

This is what we know from monitoring the scanner through the night and what we have fought to find out.

Last night as 3 dispatchers were working in the sheriff’s office, a part of the court house, a 20 year old white male who had applied for the sheriffs department and was not getting a call back, opened fire on the exterior of the building.
He was using an SKS high power long range rifle with armor piercing bullets. After several rounds were fired an officer had left the building and was fired upon. Another officer had come around the side of the building and was fired upon as well.
One downed officer was removed from the premise by another while under fire. The other officer was rescued when a police car drove in under fire and got him from the road.
The assailant busted through the front doors of the church across the street from the courthouse. There he came into contact with Paul and Paul was shot dead.
The killer then entered into the back of the church area were he proceeded to shoot off several rounds at the courthouse and people. sometime after midnight a muffled gunshot was heard from inside the building at 6ish this morning State S.W.A.T. entered the Presbyterian Church to find Paul shot in the office and the body of the shooter in the back of the church.

Paul was an awesome man. He was a native of the New York area, raised in an Italian district, he always had interesting stories to tell. He was a veteran. He was a father. He lost his family do to his use of alcohol. In the time I knew him I learned alot about his regrets. He had cleaned up from alcohol and was just beginning to repair his relationship with his family. He was homeless for a little bit before he moved in and became caretaker to the church. The saddest part for me is while we were seeking information about the person shot in the church we found out his daughter was here visiting him. This would have been a very special moment for him as he had only just begun to talk to them again.
He was a very good hearted outgoing man, whom had made many friends in the community with his kindness.

So now you know what we know... Sorry I don’t write as well as a reporter I am not one but I was caught off by the speculating and racial profiling comments. Although I understand that we fight against an external threat of terrorism it would do us good to not overlook the problem children we have here in our own homeland.

This was not some foreigner with a grudge against the U.S. or whack job just out of the pen and pissed at those who put him in. It was a 20 year old boy with an SKS, armor piercing bullets and an ‘I’m going to prove myself’ attitude who was using innocent dispatchers as bait to lure sheriffs into a deadly situation.

I hope your wife knows that me and many like me are VERY thankful for the work your wife does and are exceedingly grateful for the risks taken by our public workers to uphold a peaceful society.
This only reinforces the importance of her job.

That’s all for me.

Thanks for the feedback. My wife suspected a disgruntled employee. Close enough. BTW, the SKS is not a high powered rifle. It shoots a medium power 123 gr .311 caliber bullet. There is a fair amount of surplus Russian ammo with a steel shell between the outer copper jacket and inner lead core. That might appear to be an AP round, but it really isn't. The rifle isn't particularly long range or exceptionally accurate. Most of them (like my Romanian variant) are 5 MOA rifles i.e. they can only repeatably put rounds in a 5 inch circle at 100 yards. My "good" rifles maintain under 1/2 inch at 100 yards.

My condolences on the loss of your neighbor, friends and officers.

“This was not some foreigner with a grudge against the U.S. or whack job just out of the pen and pissed at those who put him in. It was a 20 year old boy with an SKS, armor piercing bullets and an ‘I’m going to prove myself’ attitude who was using innocent dispatchers as bait to lure sheriffs into a deadly situation.”

I guess that pretty much sums it up.

What’s with all the VIOLENCE coming from small town to semi-rural kids...???

Are there no “opportunities”, are they simply “bored”....or is it the ready availability of drugs adn the constant theme of violence on TV and in video games and rap songs...???

Whitefish is NOT “immune”...but, having lived in the area for 12+ years, I DO know there’s a WAY too permissive mindset amongst the more well-to-do who think their effluents carry no fragrance....

It was a 20 year old boy with an SKS, armor piercing bullets and an ‘I’m going to prove myself’ attitude

Actually it was a deranged, mentally unstable adult that did this.

Fox news just reported the suspect's name as Jason Hamilton. He wasn't a 20 year old. He was 36 years old. He killed his wife Crystal with a shot to the head before starting to shoot up the courthouse. He has a long criminal history and was having additional problems last week at a probation hearing. There is no way he would have ever been hired as a deputy.

My wife was discussing the incident with one of her officers last night. Our dispatch center walls and windows wouldn't stop a round from an SKS. The report they heard last night was that 30 rounds struck the exterior of the dispatch center. 125 casings have been recovered according to the Fox story.

He was using an SKS high power long range rifle with armor piercing bullets. After several rounds were fired an officer had left the building and was fired upon. Another officer had come around the side of the building and was fired upon as well.

Well SKS is not full auto, no such version was ever manufactured. As to being High Power, and "long range", you don't have clue what you are talking about, and if that is terminology used on the police radios, neither do they. The SKS fires the same round as the AK-47 series, which are considered assault rifles (the full auto versions that is). By definition an assault rifle fires an *intermediate* power cartridge, between a pistol and a full power rifle cartridge, such as the very common 30-06. All center fire rifle ammunition, well maybe save .30 carbine, will penetrate police vests, but that does not make it armor piercing. The "steel core" ammunition once available for the SKS and AK series (as well as the Ruger Mini-30) has only slightly better penetration than standard jacketed "ball" ammunition. It is in no way "armor piercing". I'm not sure if AP ammo for 7.62x39 even exists, as it does for 30-06 and 7.62 NATO ammunition. The 7.62x39 used in the AK and SKS is ballistically similar to the 30-30 once a very popular deer hunting round, at least in places where the range was likely to be short. 30-30 is slightly shorter ranged, due to having a more rounded bullet (Necessitated by it's use in rifles with tubular magazines, mostly lever actions) However the 30-30 is slightly more powerful at short range, IIRC, and depending on exact bullet and powder load used.

Given the damage to the brick exterior of the buildings, you can see that the stuff was not any sort of "armor piercing" round, and even if it had been, there would have been no way to know until the bullets, either fired ones or still in the killer's weapon, were examined.

Oh and the photos of the shooter looks a bunch older than 20. The story says his wife was 30, so it seems unlikely, but not impossible, that he was only 20.

The local (KREM) story says he had two weapons, the SKS and an M-1. Assuming the reporters didn't mess up and confuse the M-1 Garand with the M-1 Carbine, an M-1 Garand is much more powerful than an SKS or AK-47 (which they are now reporting he had rather than an SKS) The M-1 fires that 30-06 round, which I mentioned earlier, and for which true Armor Piercing ammunition does exist, but wouldn't be needed to explain anything that occurred.

This guy had a court order, stemming from domestic violence misdemeanor conviction that he was not to posses firearms. It's also against federal law for someone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor to posses firearms. Of course criminals and nut cases don't obey those laws.