Posted on 02/03/2002 11:25:12 AM PST by Pete-R-Bilt
Sat, Feb 2, 2002
By JOEY HAWS
Standard-Examiner staff
HEBER CITY -- Officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have taken over the investigation of a .50-caliber rifle discovered five miles from the Soldier Hollow Olympic Venue.
According to an incident report from the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office, a man who was hunting coyotes in the hills above Wallsburg just before 2 p.m. last Saturday discovered the weapon lying in a "custom manufactured" green military metal box marked "explosives." With the weapon were hundreds of military-grade ammunition rounds.
Tracy Hite, a special agent and spokeswoman for the ATF, said investigators from the ATF Salt Lake City Field Office were looking at the weapon to determine its owner and how it got to its location. She would not comment on if investigators believed it was to be used in anything sinister involving the cross-county skiing events at nearby Soldier Hollow.
"Our office here normally works firearms and explosive cases, so we will continue to conduct this investigation here," Hite said. Steve Groves, vice president of The Edge, a local SWAT team and bodyguard training company, said he has trained with a .50-caliber rifle, "a common sniper rifle," before, and it is powerful. Groves said in training he has been able to take out a target with a clean shot from approximately a mile away.
"We have used it to take out a large truck," Groves said. "One shot will blow an engine block away. "You can"t carry it by hand. You have to lay it down to fire it." Inside the weather-proof container, which was found on top of mice nests in the snow in a batch of sage brush, were sealed boxes containing 386 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition. Some of the ammunition was linked together, similar to machine gun rounds, the report said.
Also in the gun case were documents dated 1992, which indicated the gun was fairly new, said the hunter who found the gun and wished to remain anonymous. "It"s a big gun," the hunter said, adding it was bolt-action operated, not semi-automatic or automatic. "It"s more of a sniper gun than an assault weapon."
The man took it home and opened to see what was inside then contacted the sheriff"s office, which took possession of the container and took it to a temporary U.S. Army base for identification.
Army personnel at the base said the rifle itself was not military, but the ammunition, with color-coded tips in a variety of colors, was probably from the Vietnam era or before, the report states. The deputy was advised the paint codes most likely indicated a combination of "tracer rounds, armor piercing, incendiary and the rounds without markings were solid-ball types."
The report states the department contacted the Joint Terrorist Task Force of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command. That was when the ATF took possession of the rifle and is now analyzing it for fingerprints or any other type of identification. Since the discovery, law enforcement officials have questioned the hunter about the gun, but are tight-lipped when he asks any questions about where the gun is now and why it was where it was.
Although the hunter said he doesn"t think the weapon was intended to be used during the Olympics or for ill purposes, "it"s kind of weird, though, isn"t it?" Caroline Shaw, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said Friday night she was not aware of the discovery. "Something outside the actual Olympic venue, we probably wouldn"t know about," Shaw said.
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... It's kind of weird, though, isn't it? ...Um ... yeah.
Sounds like bs to me.
Yup, sounds like someone left it there to "look bad".
The irony would be if after a month or so, the hunter who found it gets to claim it. Isn't that how it works with "lost and found" stuff that no one claims?
Very sad if the ATF gets caught recycling an earlier siezure.
It sounds like someone just found a geocache more than anything else.
Could also be some radical Brownies getting ready for a coup against the Utah Girl Scouts . . .
If you're serious, go jump in your bunker and eat those beans you've been saving since the millenium scares. See you next year. I'll tape Gunsmoke for you.
I can’t think that I’ve ever mis-placed any of my
handguns, rifles, or even ammo, but if I
were going to get something inside a security perimeter
would I try the week of the event when there‘s 5000
military and who knows how many SS?
or the previous summer when hikers, campers, and boaters
abound and if its discovered who knows what
Can it be dismissed so easily?
"We have used it to take out a large truck," Groves said. "One shot will blow an engine block away. "You can"t carry it by hand. You have to lay it down to fire it." Inside the weather-proof container, which was found on top of mice nests in the snow in a batch of sage brush, were sealed boxes containing 386 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition. Some of the ammunition was linked together, similar to machine gun rounds, the report said.
Here's the propaganda part of the article.
The more I think about it, the more it sounds too pat:
If it was stashed for someone to use later, it would have been covered up, even buried, you'd think.
If some sand monkey was going to use it, according the the report he would have to hump the weapon and ammo - easily more than 100 pounds, another four miles cross-country to get within range of the nearest sports venue. Sounds like a not very well thought out plan.
If a real good-ol-boy sheep farmer out to drop a few coyotes found it, he would probably fist look around to see if he could follow some tracks and find out who leaves such stuff laying around, and then he would take it home and maybe take out of ad to see if someone claims it.
If this is close enough to Olympic venues to worry about this 50 cal., what about the dude shooting coyotes? Why is hunting going on so close to a secured area?
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