Deer-hunting horror: 6 people slain in Wis.
Authorities say the gunman was in a tree stand on private property and when asked to leave, he opened fire.
By Joshua Freed and Robert Imrie
Associated Press
BIRCHWOOD, Wis. - As several deer hunters made their way through the woods of northern Wisconsin, they were startled to come upon a stranger in their tree stand. But what happened next was even more astonishing.
Asked to leave, the trespasser, wearing blaze-orange and carrying a semiautomatic assault rifle, opened fire on the hunters and did not stop until his 20-round clip was empty, leaving five people dead and three wounded Sunday, authorities said. One of the wounded died yesterday.
The suspect was captured later.
The killings baffled authorities and stunned residents in a state where deer hunting is a rite of autumn, a sport practiced by thousands of people who scour the woods for nine days each November with hopes of bagging a trophy buck.
"This is an incredible tragedy, one in which a great family tradition like a deer hunt has turned into such a great loss," Gov. Jim Doyle said yesterday.
Police identified the shooter as Chai Vang, 36, a hunter from St. Paul, Minn., who is a member of the Twin Cities' Hmong community. While authorities do not know the cause of the shooting, there have been previous clashes between immigrants from Southeast Asia and white hunters in the region.
Locals have complained that the Hmong, refugees from Laos, do not understand the concept of private property and hunt wherever they see fit. In Minnesota, a fistfight once broke out after Hmong hunters entered private land, said Ilean Her, director of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans in St. Paul.
Minneapolis police said they arrested the suspect on Christmas Eve 2001 after he waved a gun and threatened to kill his wife. No charge was brought because she did not cooperate with authorities, spokesman Ron Reier said. St. Paul police said they were called to the suspect's house twice in the last year on domestic-violence calls, but both were resolved without incident and no police reports were filed.
A younger brother of the suspect said he was shocked by the allegations in the hunting shooting.
"He is a reasonable person," Sang Vang said. "I still don't believe it. He is one of the nicest persons. I don't believe he could do that. We are so devastated right now."
The eight people who were shot were part of a group of 14 or 15 who made their trip to Robert Crotteau's 400-acre property an annual tradition to open the deer-hunting season.
The visit was like any other until around noon Sunday. When two or three hunters spotted a man in their hunting platform in a tree on Crotteau's land, they radioed back to the rest of the party at a cabin nearby, and asked who should be there.
"The answer was nobody should be in the deer stand," Sawyer County Sheriff James Meier said.
One of the men approached the intruder and asked him to leave, as Crotteau and the others in the cabin hopped on their all-terrain vehicles and headed to the scene.
"The suspect got down from the deer stand, walked 40 yards, fiddled with his rifle. He took the scope off his rifle, he turned, and he opened fire on the group," Meier said.
One of the men who was shot called for help on his radio, but it was too late. The gunman fired again, hitting the people who had just arrived on ATVs, authorities said.
The gunman was "chasing after them and killing them," Sheriff's Deputy Tim Zeigle said. "He hunted them down."
The gunman was carrying an SKS 7.62mm-caliber rifle, a cheap but powerful semiautomatic weapon, authorities said.
Killed were Crotteau, 42; his son Joey, 20; Al Laski, 43; Mark Roidt, 28; and Jessica Willers, 27. Denny Drew, 55, died yesterday.
It is unclear whether anyone returned fire. The members of the hunting party had only one gun among them. Rescuers from the cabin piled the living onto their vehicles and headed out of the thick woods.
Someone in the group wrote the suspect's hunting-license number, which hunters wear on their clothing, by tracing it on a dirty vehicle, Meier said.
The suspect took off into the woods and eventually came upon two other hunters who had not heard about the shootings. The suspect told them he was lost, and they offered him a ride to a warden's truck, Meier said. He was then arrested; authorities plan to bring charges against him this week.
Investigators said he was cooperating.
Meier said the suspect was on the wrong tree stand because he had become lost and wandered unknowingly onto private property. |
