Posted on 12/09/2003 2:56:08 AM PST by John W
ABBEVILLE, S.C. (AP) - A father and son angered by a state plan to seize some of their land allegedly shot and killed an officer who went to the home, sparking a 13-hour standoff that ended in a "horrendous gunfight" in which another officer was killed, authorities and neighbors said. At least 100 officers surrounded the rural home of Arthur Bixby in western South Carolina on Monday. Bixby's wife then holed up in an apartment in town and threatened to shoot bystanders if her husband or son were injured; she was promptly arrested, State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart said.
It began Monday morning when a magistrate's officer went to the house in a rural part of the state to follow up on an incident from the previous week involving a dispute between Department of Transportation workers and someone from the house, officials said.
When the officer failed to return, two deputies went to the Bixby home looking for him.
What happened next is unclear, but the deputies called for help and law enforcement officials surrounded the home, and the standoff began.
Eleven hours later, officers unsuccessfully tried to storm the home and were shot at with powerful weapons, Stewart said.
"I've never seen so much force," Stewart said. None of the family members tried to negotiate with officers during the standoff.
"This was planned," Stewart said.
The gunfight lasted about 10 minutes and police fired tear gas inside the home. Bixby's son, 36-year-old Steven Bixby, surrendered. Two hours later, officers entered the home and arrested Arthur Bixby, who apparently was wounded in the gunfight. He was hospitalized and his condition was not available early Tuesday.
No formal charges had been filed as of early Tuesday.
At some point during the standoff, the Bixbys destroyed two remote control robots authorities sent into the house to figure out what was happening, Stewart said.
Inside the home, authorities found a dead deputy and what they described as anti-American literature and suicide notes. Similar material also was found inside the apartment in town where Bixby's wife was arrested. Authorities did not say whose apartment it was.
Stewart said the family had prepared for the standoff and fortified the house's doors to make it harder for police to break in.
Authorities identified the two dead officers as Danny Wilson and Donnie M. Ouzts.
Ouzts apparently had been shot from a distance with a rifle, state Public Safety spokesman Sid Gaulden said; Wilson was found inside the home. Authorities would not say which one first went to the house.
Gene Land, Bixby's neighbor who lives about a half-mile away, said Steven Bixby was angry because the state planned to take some of his land to widen the highway. The Bixbys had lived in the house for more than 10 years, Land said.
A dispute Thursday between state transportation workers and someone from the home on Highway 72 precipitated the incident, DOT spokesman Pete Poore said.
AP-ES-12-09-03 0519EST
IOW the Government is America.
How does it feel being a Gubbermint JBT shill?
Those statist curs! Don't they know that the Constimatushion clearly protects the right to commit cold-blooded murder?! Free Mumia Abu-Bixby now!
You're an idiot.
It probably won't ever "ring true". It's very hard to get to the truth with incidents like this because everyone has a conflicting story to tell or an axe to grind.
There are no Grand Juries impaneled in South Carolina? What exactly doesn't ring true, that a family of kooks went over the deep end and committed murder over the widening of a road?
From the pictures it looks like that highway project was going to within five foot of their front door. As also can be seen there was no reason to build a highway five feet from their front door when the photo's clearly show the opposite side of the highway has no homes for, what? A quarter mile? Looks like they had pleanty of room to build their highway without ruining the property on the only inhabited side of the street. I'd sure like to know what their anti-American literature was.
One of the photos shows what looks like a significant amount of land alteration on the opposite side of the highway.
We do not have the full story here.
Perhaps Mao and some fringed nutcases like to preach that political power comes from the barrel of a gun, but self-governable Americans do not.
There is an awful lot of Gubbermint abuse of private property rights occurring right now in our country - if you care to look. Try fighting and winning a eminent domain case, just try.
And this somehow justifies cold-blooded murder?
Nobody on this thread said it did.
Which was there first, his house or the highway expansion?
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