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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp ... 3531-2004Nov22.html
In Deer Country, a Puzzling Shooting Spree
Six People Killed; Hunter Questioned
By Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A02
RICE LAKE, Wis., Nov. 22 -- The survivors said the shooting was entirely unexpected. Hunters on private property had told Chai Soua Vang that he was trespassing and needed to leave the deer stand, where he had taken a position on Sunday morning with his SKS assault rifle.
Vang climbed down and walked about 40 yards. He took the scope off his rifle, turned and opened fire, Sawyer County Sheriff James Meier said Monday. One of the wounded men radioed for help. Others headed to the rescue, but Meier said Vang also opened fire on them, leaving five dead and three seriously wounded.
Emergency personnel gather Sunday near the scene in northern Wisconsin where a dispute among deer hunters apparently occurred. (Terrell Boettcher -- AP)
"The rescuers, who also came under fire, checked bodies for signs of life," Meier said. "They grabbed who they could grab and got out of there because they were still under fire." They left the dead in the woods.
Vang, 36, ran out of bullets and fled, the sheriff said. He was captured several hours later when two hunters encountered him wandering lost. They took him to a game warden, who arrested him and remarked: "He was very calm. He didn't say anything." A sixth hunter died tonight. Shot in the abdomen, Denny Drew, 55, improved enough during the day to be flown by helicopter from Rice Lake to a trauma center in Marshfield, Wis., but he died soon after.
Vang, who is from St. Paul, in neighboring Minnesota, and has not been charged, is the sole suspect in an incident that has been met in deer country with bafflement and sorrow as much as outrage. People talked of being mystified that a dispute over a deer stand, not uncommon in the intensity of Wisconsin's brief hunting season, could become so bloody.
"It's just bizarre," said Mark Miller, who owns Fatman's Bar, where shooting victim Robert Crouteau -- killed with his 20-year-old son, Joey -- was a regular. "It's worse when you know them. I knew Bobby pretty good."
Police said Vang, a former soldier and member of the Hmong community in Minnesota, has been cooperative. They declined to say whether he offered his own version of events. Meier gave the following account to reporters:
Vang was hunting with companions near Birchwood in northern Wisconsin on Sunday, the second day of the state's nine-day deer season. He walked onto private property, owned by Crouteau, next to public land where his group may have intended to hunt.
Dressed in blaze-orange gear and camouflage, he climbed into a vacant deer stand. Terry Willers, walking with at least one friend, spotted Vang and used his walkie-talkie to radio back to his base camp and ask whether Vang had permission to be there. Told that Vang was trespassing, Willers radioed that he would ask him to leave.
Willers told Vang to go and was soon joined by two friends. There may have been a confrontation, although details remain unclear. Vang climbed down and started to walk away before turning and shooting. As Willers radioed for help, Vang opened fire on others.
"They keyed up the radio and said, 'I've been shot! Send some more help!' " Meier reported.
Vang emptied his 20-round clip within 15 minutes. He allegedly shot two people off their all-terrain vehicles, and chased others. Authorities have not said whether the other hunters fired back.
The rescuers managed to retrieve three wounded friends, put them on their four-wheelers and escape. Someone noted Vang's hunting license number and wrote it in the dust of an ATV. The number was relayed to authorities, who issued a bulletin as the survivors were taken to hospitals.
Vang waded deeper into the thick cover. "He was wandering aimlessly in the woods, lost," Meier said.
Later in the day, Vang asked two hunters for help. They took him to a game warden, who recognized his hunting license tag. He was still carrying his SKS rifle, a simple and inexpensive firearm often used by local hunters.
"He was out of bullets or might not have been done yet," speculated Miller, who said Vang had no business being in someone else's deer stand. "You don't go wander out and sit in somebody's stand. There is no reason for him to be there. Something's really goofy."
Emergency personnel gather Sunday near the scene in northern Wisconsin where a dispute among deer hunters apparently occurred. (Terrell Boettcher -- AP)
Rules and etiquette on American hunting passed from generation to generation have proved unfamiliar to many Hmong, who come from Laos, where hunting is a practiced skill. The Lao mountains are among the wildest and least populated areas of the world. There are no regulations about what, where or when to hunt. Conservation officers and property owners in several states have reported conflicts with the Hmong over their hunting practices, often because they did not understand American traditions. Four years ago, Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources hired a Hmong officer to teach the community about local hunting and fishing rules.
Joe Bee Xiong, 44, is a Hmong resident who has been hunting deer near Eau Claire, Wis., since he reached the United States from Laos in 1979. He said that he was stunned and horrified by the killings, and that he wants to know more. He said Vang may have felt confused or defensive.
"To think that he shot so many people makes me think maybe something that we don't know about happened," said Xiong, director of the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association and a former Eau Claire City Council member. "Once in a while when I'd hunt I'd meet non-Hmong who would say things to me, but I speak English well and I know the laws, so I would explain myself and walk away from the situation."
Authorities said Vang spoke English well.
People in Rice Lake talked of little else Monday. One man said it was freakish and unexpected, like the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Most everyone seemed to know one of the victims.
"That's been the hardest part of it. It's a really close family here," said Lynn D. Koob, a Rice Lake surgeon who tended to Drew and saw him onto the helicopter. Patricia Willers, whose husband, Terry Willers, was wounded and daughter Jessica Willers, 27, was killed, is an operating room nurse here.
The others killed were Al Laski, 43, and Mark Roidt, 28. Survivor Lauren Hasebeck, 48, is listed in stable condition.
At Fatman's, Richard Kern and two friends stopped for a drink Monday night after spending the day in the woods. Still wearing their blaze-orange hats, they could not fathom the crime, not in a community where hunting eclipses almost everything else this time of year. Many children take their first aim at a buck as soon as they turn the legal age.
"Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving. It's when deer hunting starts," said Kern, a 33-year-old painter. "Most of the people around here have been hunting since they were 12. It's just something we do."
Lydersen, a special correspondent, reported from Chicago. Staff writer Marc Kaufman and research editor Lucy Shackelford in Washington contributed to this report. |
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