Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday November 23, 2004
The Guardian
A deerhunter went on a rampage in north-western Wisconsin, shooting dead five people and wounding three others, apparently in a dispute over a hunting spot on the opening day of the US deerhunting season.
Last night two of the wounded were critically ill in hospital.
Police officials said yesterday that the carnage had erupted after hunters returned to their cabin and saw an unknown gunman in what they considered their tree stand, or hide.
Although it was unclear who opened fire first, police said the hunters had been wounded and radioed to friends a quarter of a mile away for help. When the friends came, they were also shot.
A 36-year-old man was arrested Sunday afternoon when he came out of the woods after the shootings. He was named as Chai Vang, from St Paul, Minnesota.
The victims were part of a larger group hunting near a rural cabin on private land in Sawyer County in northwestern Wisconsin.
One hunter spotted someone in their tree stand, and he and several others approached the man and asked him to leave, said Sawyer County Sheriff James Meier. The man allegedly got down and was walking away, when "for some apparent reason he turned and opened fire," he said.
One hunter radioed for help, and more people were shot as they arrived on all-terrain vehicles to rescue the first group, authorities said. Someone wrote down the suspect's hunting licence number, which hunters wear on their clothing, by tracing it on a dirty vehicle.
Early reports said the eight dead and wounded had only one gun between them. Bodies were strewn for 100 metres. The dead include a woman, and a father and his 20-year-old son. All were from north-west Wisconsin.
The suspect was arrested when he emerged from the woods and a Department of Natural Resources officer recognised the deer licence number on his back from a description given by one of the victims.
Wisconsin issued more than 600,000 licences for the nine-day season this year. Shooting deer is a family affair, and often enthusiasts have been hunting together for years. Using another hunter's stand is viewed as a serious breach of etiquette.
Comments
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Don't be so quick to draw conclusions
23.11.2004 13:31
a) Yes on "private property". But I don't know whether Wisconsin follows "Eastern" or "Western" states rules on hunting. For example, I live in the East (Massachusetts( and by the rules here, I can legally exclude hunters from our "private" woods only if it is "posted". Which means ...
If we have SOME signs, say along the road, we can tell hunters politely to leave. We cannot yell at them or acuse them of terpassing unless we have the entire perimiter posted so closely that there is no gap. In SOME "towns" (townships) each of the signs must be SIGNED AND REDATED annually. Now Step by Step land has a perimiter of about 3 kms so you work out what effort would be involved to place signes at say 20-30 m intevals so that there are no places where one could cross the boundary without seeing a sign. Do you understand? If we have posted at all we can ask unwelcome hunters to leave but not acuse them of "trepassing" unless we have a fully demarked boundary.
In the West, law and custom require asking the landowner for permission. Here in the east, they don't have to even inform you, and basically we cannot even walk in our own "backyard" during hunting season.
b) This was one Hmong and a whole bunch of irtate property owners. We DON'T yet know what was said or whether he was threatened. Some of the stories interviewing other people from the area have things like "those people don't understand private property" (or whatever) and report many fights between whites and Hmong. This MAY be a "racial incident" and not a "hunting incident".
BTW -- that was some shooting (he emptied one 20 round clip killing five and wounding three more). But of course the Hmong were a "hill tribe". For those of you too young to remember, they are refugees in the US becuase they sided with the US during the Vietnam War.
Mike
e-mail: stepbystpefarm mtdata.com
Cool?
23.11.2004 14:13
Ian
oh the irony...
23.11.2004 15:29
I consider that shooting a defensless animal is murder just as much as killing a human.
fredrico
e-mail: musteatvegan@yahoo.co.uk
Hunter vs Hunter
23.11.2004 16:23
Sadly, the bigger picture is that there are lots of people out there who think it;s ok to shoot at anything if the mood takes you.
bobby
yeah
23.11.2004 20:50
I'm also glad there are fewer hunters on the earth now
(A)
Deer are not "innocent"
23.11.2004 21:14
Do you consider yourself an animal or some other "more spiritual" or "higher" sort of entity. Do you feel superior to, more noble, more self respeciting than a wolf? WHY are you uncomfortable with the idea that you are an animal? Is it because animals die and return to the Earth from which we all come? You aspire to some other end?
This may not be easy for you to understand at an emotional level, but rural Wisonsin is not like the environment with which you are familiar. Nor is hunting here an activity of the "toffs" but mainly a "working class" pursuit. A hell of lot of hunters out in the woods have taken along a couple cases of beer (NOT condusive to careful hunting practices).
Imagine a Britain where 9 out of 10 people vanished, imagine what the countryside would look like. And here I am not talking about rural Wisconsin but ALL of Wisconsin including its major cities to get that 10% population density comparison. You should have sensed by my earlier post that I get pissed off by hunters, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. SOME animal has to hunt and kill and eat the deer, and I would really prefer that to be wolves, only at least around here that would get kind of awkward (population density comparable to Britain) with not being able to let small children out of the house.
Mike
e-mail: stepbystpefarm mtdata.com
why does anything have to kill deer?
24.11.2004 11:16
however, neither this nor the fact that american hunters are more likely to be working class makes any difference to whether the act of killing deer is right or wrong. unlike other animals we are capable of choosing whether we follow our impulse to kill or not. it is simply not true that "SOME animal has to hunt and kill and eat the deer". am i the only one who can envisage a future in which no such tyranny of predator-prey relationships has to exist? in the meantime, it is certainly possible to say that no human HAS to kill deer.
cautious pacifist
Hypocrites
25.11.2004 14:31
Have to laugh at you ignorant few who are happy these hunters were murdered.Are you vegetarians ?? Or just hypocrites? The shooter in this case should be publicly hanged, but that could be too merciful.Think about that the next time you order your chicken,beef or fish!
martin makowski