Posted on 11/22/2004 12:41:19 PM PST by Mr.Atos
Wisconsin town in shock over shootings
Duluth News Tribune
RICE LAKE, Wis. - The community where eight people were shot, five of them fatally, after a hunting dispute Sunday was trying to absorb the horror of the incident today.
"The community is in shock," said Glen Ruie of Rice Lake. "These people weren't murdered. It was a massacre. We're all just trying to cope with it."
Mike Neil, a salesman at Link Motors in Rice Lake, where two of the shooting survivors work, said, "This is insane. This doesn't happen around here."
He predicted that the incident would lessen hunters' enthusiasm for heading out into the woods, at least in the short term.
Meanwhile, the most seriously injured survivor of the Northwestern Wisconsin shooting spree was listed in critical condition today at Lakeview Medical Center in Rice Lake.
The two other men who were shot but survived are in stable condition, said Dr. Lynn Koob, general surgeon at the Rice Lake hospital. All three men were described as in their 40s and 50s and are from Rice Lake. Each was shot once, Koob said.
Five people, one a woman and one a teenage boy, were killed following a dispute over the use of a tree stand. Chai Vang, 36, of St. Paul was arrested several hours after the shootings and is being held in the Sawyer County Jail.
The patient in critical condition, Denny Drew, suffered a gunshot wound that penetrated his abdomen from side to side, piercing his pancreas and small and large intestines, Koob said in a morning news conference.
Terry Willers was shot from above in the neck and shoulder, Koob said. His injuries are to the bone. He was transported by helicopter to St. Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield, Wis.
Lauren Hesebeck was shot from the rear in the shoulder and arm. Hesebeck is Drew's brother-in-law.
Koob said the men were shot with a high-powered assault rifle from a range of about 50 yards.
Earlier in the news conference, Ned Wolf, chief executive officer of Lakeview Medical Center, read a statement from the family of the three survivors. It said, in part, "We are grieving for our friends who were killed yesterday, and it is important for us to spend time with our own family today.
"It is also important for the community to know the status of our family and friends." They thanked the community for its care and support.
Wolf announced that a fund has been set up for the shooting victims. Donations can be sent to the Rice Lake Hunters Survivors and Victims Fund, Dairy State Bank, 16 S. Main St., Rice Lake, Wis. 54868.
The Sawyer County Sheriff's Department has scheduled a news conference at 1 p.m., when the names of the five people killed will be released.
Maybe an assault rifle is defined as a rifle used in an assault...
What was the type of rifle used?
an sks
it was an sks, which is just a semi-auto rifle, but the press loves to call it an 'assault rifle'.
No pistol grip.
No detachable mag.
10 round capacity.
Doesn't fit the brady bunch definition of 'assault rifle', but hell, let's call it one anyway!
Dahmer got the death penalty alright. Just not from the state.
It's Hmong. (From Southeast Asia)
Now the Wisconsin taxpayers will get doubly screwed, paying for this upcoming media circus trial, paying for Hmong translators and for Chai Vang's lifetime room and board in prison
He had to upgrade. The Deer are now equipped with semi automatic antlers.
I did not see the make of rifle. SKS is an assault rifle, but there are lots of rifles that hold 3 or more cartridges. Do we know it was SKS? SKS is a piece of crap: kind of a Saturday-night-special rifle.
That will not make any difference to the gun grabbers. The shootings could have been done with a single shot rifle and they would still want all hunters (and everyone else) disarmed.
From my cold, dead hand...
But all ethnic groups have their deviants and nut cases.
(um...that's kinda blatantly obvious...and stuff.)
I wonder if he had one of those funny coned hats on.
Why can't he catch deer with a pit full of punji sticks.
I read somewhere it was an SKS. It's a good,cheap poor man's deer rifle. Put a 5 round , hunt legal clip in it and
you've got a cheap 100 yard woods rifle for deer.
I got one .
With eight hunters shot, plus one murderer, surely the press can work in the word "arsenal."
you got a way with words. good point.
The SKS is NOT an assault rifle by any definition of the word.
The SKS is cheap not because it is poorly made, but because they were made by the millions in commbloc countries and they are now being sold in the US because they are no longered needed in their original countries.
The be careful when you get in your 'assault car' and use your 'assault knife' to cut up your dinner tonight'. And make sure your kids don't have any dangerous 'assault bats' in the garage.
Oh, and forget about those 'assault hammers'. Throw them out now. It's for the children.
SKS 7.62 mm semiautomatic rifle
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