Five Dead After Deer Hunting Dispute

[Southpaw Bookworm]

Just a little chlorine in the gene pool . . .

A dispute among deer hunters over a tree stand in northwestern Wisconsin erupted Sunday in a series of shootings that left five people dead and three injured, officials said.

The alleged gunman, a man from the Twin Cities area, was arrested Sunday afternoon at the line between Rusk and Sawyer counties, according to Sawyer County sheriff's officials.

The violence began shortly after a hunting party saw a hunter occupying their tree stand, Sawyer County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle told KSTP-TV of St. Paul, Minn. A confrontation and shooting followed.

One of the shooting victims radioed back to the deer shack for help, he said. When more hunters came to the scene, they also were shot, Zeigle said.

http://www.dominionpost.com/a/news/2004/11/22/ah/

[shoelace414]

1. If only all of them had guns

wait.. they did maybe they needed more God

[Her Blondness]

44. Yay for the NRA!

The Bush voters are killing each other off! Cool!
:toast:

[Champ]

2. This is already being beat to death in LBN

Looks like it will be beat to death in here as well.

[BRLIB]

3. The Australian put a good twist on the story

"Row ends with five deerly departed"

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11470076%255E2703,00.html

[Endangered Specie]

42. Ohhh that is BAD!... I really hope the precher dont say that

at their funeral. :spank:

[NJ_Lib]

4. This is my favorite quote...

Quote ''When you're hunting you don't expect somebody to try to shoot you and murder you,'' he said. Quote

Nuff' said...

[Unstuck In Time]

5. "A spokesdeer could not be reached to rebut the hunter's comment."

[NJ_Lib]

7. Hehehe...

:)

[Renew Deal]

6. Now that's what I call hunting.

How long before this sort of thing is on TV?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

8. I've always found hunting season to be a little scary.

My family had a 10 acre property, but my brother and I couldn't play on most of it (the wooded area) during hunting season because people might go hunting on our property. There's nothing you can really do to prevent these people from hunting on your land. No trespassing signs don't work. A couple times we heard guns go off at night during hunting season. Hunting at night is illegal, but there always were a few idiots that would try it.

[short bus president]

36. Maybe not deer hunting at night.

Around here, shots in the woods at night mean someone's coon huntin'. I've been once, when I was a teenager. And it's great fun to run around through the woods at night with a rifle slung over yer shoulder, chasing after the sounds of yer baying hounds. Then you get to where they've treed the poor bastard, and it comes time to shoot it. That's where it stopped being fun for me, so I never went back.

[RetroLounge]

9. Funny and all, but this happened in my State

a Blue state.

and it was just miles from where my folks live.

and one of the dead is someone my Dad knows.

So I'm not laughing...

RL

[Liberal Christian]

10. I'm not laughing either

I don't see what's even remotely humorous about this. Six people are dead tonight, another having died of her injuries since this thread was begun.

There are always unfortunate hunting "accidents." This was no accident. We don't know what it was, why the perpetrator took off as he did. What we do know is that several families and an entire small town are in shock and mourning tonight.

Tell me again why this is funny?

Jeanny

[Gothic Sponge]

12. It's not funny, just ironic.

The hunters went to kill, and they got killed.

[RevCheesehead]

16. NOT FUNNY! The idiot went deerhunting with an ASSAULT WEAPON!

He had 20 rounds of ammo that he went through. Some of the people who were shot were approaching the area on their ATV's.

The guy was clearly trespassing on private property. When the landowner went out to confront him, the guy shot him. He then shot at anyone who approached the scene.

Six dead. Two more wounded.

How is this funny?

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. Oh, sweet Jesus, the definition of "assualt weapon" is totally nebulous

and, quite matter of factly, undefinable. Many of my rifles are assault weapons, even though they really aren't (that is, they don't look scary, which seems to be the only real working definition the anti-assault-weapon people can come up with; though technically, i guess they want to define it as a scary looking weapon, like in the movies, and which has a clip).

I've hunted with "assualt weapons" - that is, I have guns with clips. Technically, that makes them assualt weapons.

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RevCheesehead]

21. The term "assault weapon" was used by Sheriff Meier

at the news conference this afternoon.

From the Milwaukee Journal article:

Vang got down from the stand, walked about 40 yards, took the scope off the SKS semiautomatic rifle he was carrying and began firing at the hunters, Meier said.

Vang was dressed in blaze orange and still wearing his hunting license. His rifle and its 20-round magazine were empty. Meier did not say how many shell casings had been recovered at the scene.

***************

Admittedly, I do not know about guns, or what constitutes an "assault weapon." But I did hear that he had 20 rounds of ammo., and that he had used all the ammo. on his shooting spree.

[Zuni]

29. An SKS is not even full auto

and the clip on the sks is not standard. The original Russian rifle has a 10 round attached box reloaded by strippers.
This rifle was probably modified at home.

[TheMightyFavog]

32. Well, The SKS really isn't an assault weapon in my book...

IIRC, the SKS was never configured to fire full auto in any version, so I don't consider it an assault weapon per se. But a 20 Round Clip? I know people back home who use the SKS at their deer rifle, and they just use the 10 round stripper clip, or they don't even put 10 rounds in the magazine. If you need 20 fucking rounds to hit a deer, if you need to put that much lead in the air to hit a deer, you are a danger to other hunters and non hunters alike, and have no buisness hunting at all.

If I still hunted, I'd be using an old 30.06 M1 Garand.

[Zuni]

26. I personally love assault weapons

but that is just me. I am with you on this. It is not the gun, it is the pyscho

[northzax]

37. obviously, this man was deranged

I think we can all agree on that. The question comes in with the presence of the 20 round clip. Since most every hunter I konw, and every post I have seen referring to this incident wonders why you need a 20 round clip to shoot a deer (and it would just be one deer, you could of course reload between deer, whould you miss the first with the ten rounds in the standard clip) how many of the people who were killed were killed with the second ten rounds from the gun?

What makes this an assult rifle is basically the ability to fire 20 rounds without reloading, am I right? Sure, this guy is nuts, no arguement there, and would have fired off 10 rounds, but how many were killed by the second ten that had no real purpose in the hunt?

[slackmaster]

39. The SKS has never been considered an assault weapon even in CA

Not under the expired federal law, not by any US states or municipalities.

You can still buy a brand-new one here in California, which has the toughest "assault weapons" law in the nation.

[Squeegee]

11. And they thought natural selection was a just a "theory"...

;)

[Skip Intro]

13. If they had to kill something...

I'm sorry, I'm really sorry people are dead. But I suspect some form of justice happened here.

If they weren't out there with guns to trap and kill other living things, this would have never happened.

Sympathy is hard to justify here.

[realisticphish]

14. i can justify an assload of sympathy

you're equating a guy murdering 5 people with the killing of a deer?


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[Skip Intro]

18. no, I'm equating killers with killers

killing is the common, central theme, and an inability to see that makes it no less true

people with guns, out to kill

yeah, I'm equating all that

[Liberal Christian]

24. Oh, good grief!

The deer population in Wisconsin and many other states is out of control. You can debate until you're purple in the face why that is -- encroachment on habitat, global warming so more of them live through the winter, methods of harvesting which leave remnants of food in the fields for the deer to eat during the winter, whatever. The reality is that deer are everywhere, and mostly they're out trying to figure out a way to fling themselves in the paths of oncoming vehicles.

Wisconsin has something like 50,000 or more deer-vehicle crashes a year. That's not chump change. The herd needs to be culled and managed.

That's what hunters and fishers, in conjunction with the Department of Natural Resources do. They manage the herd. They have taken the lead on helping to clear out Chronic Wasting Disease among deer. They are usually sound environmentalists. They understand something about the relationship between all creatures that is part of the cycle of nature.

It is impossible for any living thing to survive without killing another living thing. No matter what you eat, you either kill your food or you buy it already killed from the grocery store. Or did you suppose that broccoli was still alive when you ate it all chopped up and lightly steamed?

Is it more or less humane to kill your food with a single clean rifle shot while it's ranging in its natural habitat than to coop it up in a feedlot, then slaughter it in a slaughterhouse?

During the lean years when my sister and her husband were making their living at art fairs around the midwest, they depended on the meat that he brought in as a result of hunting. Unlike people's stereotypes, he didn't go out and spend thousands of dollars to buy stuff for hunting. He had a good hunting rifle, a good bow, and the appropriate attire. He bought all that once. He hunted every year. It more than evened out with the food he was able to bring in to feed his family.

To see this tragedy as ironic because "they went out to kill and were themselves killed" is sophomoric. It is a tragedy -- for those who died and for the one who killed them, who clearly was, at least in that moment, a very troubled person.

[Zuni]

28. I am not even going to comment

[Truman01]

47. I'm sure those Dirty Indians got what they deserved too

Since they were hunters, I'm sure they deserved to be killed.


:puke: :puke:


This is why red staters don't vote for us.

[flvegan]

23. Speciesism

Actually, it's 5 people with the potential killing of hundreds of deer (this was an "annual tradition" according to the story). What if it were one person and 5 deer? When specifically does speciesism kick in? BTW, I don't advocate the killing of any being, human or animal, so please don't suggest that I would say the hunters "deserved" anything.

[Zuni]

27. speciesism?

we are really getting carried away here....

[flvegan]

30. How so?

[Zuni]

31. you have to be kidding

[flvegan]

33. No, I'm not

The post stated something to the nature of equating the killing of 5 people to 1 deer. I equate killing with killing, regardless of number or species. Most people equate life value with the species of that being rather than characteristics or sentience. All life has it's own equal value, not just the value "given" by humans ego.

[realisticphish]

41. so i assume

you dont use anti-bacterial soap, or anti-fungal cream, or pastuerization, or bug killer, or weed killer, or antibiotics?


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[short bus president]

35. Peter Singer is a freak of Nature.

"Speciesism" is specious, and illogical at its core. Reduced to absurdity, how much of certain species of bacteria do you obliterate every time you brush your teeth? "Speciesism" is utter bunk. Good luck with trying to defend it. That, more than anything, is what got Peter Singer moved from the index of ethicists back to the fringe appendices.

[flvegan]

38. Could care less about Singer. Try Darwin.

It's not illogical. You take it to the nth degree and yes, it does become absurd (your bacteria point, as stated) to think about. Still, MY choice to obliterate bacteria is based on my own personal desire to clean/maintain my teeth and health. It's still choice.

[Viking12]

15. If ignorance were bliss...

you're probably quite content.

[Skip Intro]

19. please, elaborate

[RebelOne]

25. Amen to that.

[DrGonzoLives]

34. Ahhh, the militant PETAists have arrived

Hey, they deserved to die, hunting deer like that. Bastards! :eyes:

Funny you can muster sympathy for animals but not people who get shot. What a kind, loving human being you are. A credit to liberals everywhere.

[Truman01]

46. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? :wtf: :wow:

:wow: :wow: I can see not liking hunters, though I grew up with it all my life. But do you REALLY think there is some sort of Equity in the fact that these people were shot and KILLED just because they were out to HUNT?

So let me see, does that mean it was ok for US soldiers to kill Indians because they killed Buffalo? And don't tell me they did it to eat them, fine; how do we know these hunters don't eat the deer they kill? And if they don't kill them, how many deer will suffer and STARVE to death.

I'm sorry but it is just this sort of reasoning that makes Moderate and especially Souther Democrats just shake their heads and vote for IDIOTS like Bushco.


:puke:

[RevCheesehead]

20. Maybe you all should read the FULL STORY before commenting

6th victim dies from Sunday's shooting
By JOHN DIEDRICH and LEE BERGQUIST
[e-mail]
Posted: Nov. 22, 2004
Hayward - A Minnesota truck driver confronted for hunting on private land opened fire on mostly unarmed hunters and then picked off others as they rushed to the bloody scene to help, officials said Monday.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov04/277651.asp

Chai Soua Vang, 36, a St. Paul resident and former soldier who is married with six children, was arrested five hours after the shootings Sunday in which five hunters were killed and three were wounded.

One of the wounded, Denny Drew, 55, died Monday, Sawyer County Sheriff James Meier confirmed.

Vang, who hasn't been charged, was being held Monday in the Sawyer County Jail. Vang, who is Hmong, speaks English well and was cooperating but hadn't admitted to the shooting, authorities said.

Officials released many chilling new details of the shooting, but remained baffled about the reason for the rampage.

"It's unbelievable that it can happen in a small county," Meier said. "I just don't think that any of this makes sense."

Those killed Sunday in the remote Wisconsin woods were Robert Crotteau, 42; his son, Joey Crotteau, 20; Al Laski, 43; Mark Roidt, 28; and Jessica Willers, 27.

The injured are Terry Willers, 47, Jessica Willers' father; and Lauren Hesebeck, 48. Hesebeck and Drew were brothers-in-law.

They were part of a group of 14 or 15 hunters continuing an annual tradition. All of the victims were from the Rice Lake area or had connections there, and their deaths shocked the city of 8,300.

"The worst part is people don't understand why," said Karen Heram, who works at the Rice Lake Chamber of Commerce. "It just seems so senseless. There are disagreements over private property, but you don't do this."

Nestled next to a 939-acre lake of the same name, Rice Lake is the hub of Barron County, drawing people to shop and work and - at this time of year - drawing loads of deer hunters. It's the biggest city around, but it's still a small town, residents said.

Most of the people in Rice Lake knew of the victims or knew them well themselves, said Rice Lake Police Chief John Sommerfeld.

"Obviously, the town is devastated." he said. "Everyone seems pretty unfocused, pretty quiet."

At noon Sunday, Vang was hunting in Sawyer County when he got lost and wandered onto private land among public forest, Meier said.

Vang may have been hunting with two other people from the St. Paul area, but that hadn't been confirmed. Authorities are looking for the other two.

Vang climbed up the tree stand. Terry Willers discovered him, radioed to Crotteau at their cabin a quarter mile away, approached Vang and asked him to leave, Meier said.

Vang got down from the stand, walked about 40 yards, took the scope off the SKS semiautomatic rifle he was carrying and began firing at the hunters, Meier said.

Terry Willers was the first to be shot. As he lay wounded, he radioed to others that they were under fire, Meier said.

One hunter read the hunting registration number pinned to Vang's back and wrote it in the dust on an all-terrain vehicle. Another called 911.

According to Meier, some of the hunters began to run away and some may have tried to fire back at Vang, but there was only one gun among them out in the woods.

Vang was walking around the woods, firing on the hunters, he said.

"They grabbed who they could grab because they were still under fire," he said.

As more hunters came, Vang continued to fire, Meier said. He shot some of the hunters more than once, he said. At least three of the victims were shot from 50 yards or more, a doctor who treated them said.

Laski and Jessica Willers, who were back at the cabin, headed to the scene unarmed, Meier said. Vang shot and killed the pair as they rode in on an ATV, Meier said.

Vang disappeared into the woods as eight hunters lay bleeding and another half-dozen or so in their hunting party cared for the wounded. Bodies were scattered over a 100-square-yard area.

Police from at least three counties and game wardens from the Department of Natural Resources scoured the woods and patrolled from the air, searching for Vang.

Vang, whose brother said he emigrated from Laos as a boy and served in the U.S. Army, again got lost until he came upon two other deer hunters, Meier said.

Vang was dressed in blaze orange and still wearing his hunting license. His rifle and its 20-round magazine were empty. Meier did not say how many shell casings had been recovered at the scene.

The two hunters knew this was probably the man police and game wardens were searching for and drove him out of the woods, Meier said.

Five hours after the shooting, DNR game warden Jeremy Peery shone a light in Vang's face and looked down at the SKS rifle.

Peery drew his gun, matched the hunting license registration number and told Vang he was under arrest.

The 28-year-old warden learned later that Vang was out of bullets.

"I was just glad he didn't have any more rounds on him," he said.

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Thanks for posting more news on that

I was wondering first if maybe the guy had been a soldier in Laos. But I see he wasn't. Obviously, not a very healthy man. And such a waste.

Where are you reverending? And what church?

I'm just thinking that there are some ministers in Rice Lake that are going to be busy for a while. And not just with funerals. This is gonna shake up the whole town with mourning; and won't spell good for the relations between the races, either. And that reminded me to ask you where you are.

[Endangered Specie]

43. "Unarmed Hunters"

isnt that a contradiction in terms?

[Orsino]

40. Of course that's what THEY want you to think!

What no one's talking about is the possibility that the deer offed them all before taking its own life. Fnord.

[Endangered Specie]

45. and if the pro-gun NRA crowd had had their way..

he woulda been allowed to hunt with an AK-47.

[slackmaster]

48. Wisconsin has no restrictions on semiautomatic hunting rifles

You can't hunt with a real selective-fire AK there, but according to one of our other contributors there is no limit on magazine capacity or caliber as long as it isn't a rimfire .22 or a .17.