Details from one of the dog teams

My brother was one of the people that helped catch the guy shooting up the logging equipment.  Here is his story:

From: Doug Huffman
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 10:31 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Were you and Nick one of the teams?

Hi Joe,

Yes,  Nick and I were there when he was arrested.  Also, it was tear gas
(CS) not pepper spray.  If you look at his picture, you will see his
left arm is in a sling.  He was on his hands and knees coming out of his
shelter, his right hand lifted off the floor and revealed his MAK-90 on
the floor, he moved his hand out, leaving the rifle on the ground.  Then
for some unexplained reason, he started to back up, his right hand moved
back towards the rifle.  Guy Cordle very nearly shot him in the back
with a 12 ga at that point, in a split second decision, he decided he
could stop the subject with a hard kick to the left arm right where it
connects to the shoulder.  That knocked him flat on his face and removed
his hand from the proximity of the rifle.  They took him to the ER and
they apparently put his arm in a sling.

I went with two deputies on Monday afternoon after he stole the coffee
with my GPS and compass.  We stopped at various points around the canyon
where he was and took GPS points and compass reading from the
directional antenna on a fish and game locator.  When you get too close,
the receiver would receive signal from any direction, so we had to be
back a ways and didn’t take the receiver into the woods with us the next
morning.  I went home and plotted it out on graph paper, determined the
most likely point and programmed it into my GPS and set it to take us to
that location.  We went in the next morning at day break, Nick and I in
the middle with 5 others.  Nick was there to alert us if he was hiding
in the bushes, or behind a log.  Moving very slowly, we moved about 1/2
mile in 2 hours before he was located.  My GPS point was about 200 yards
off.  Nick was some help, but wasn’t the one who made the find.  He kept
wanting to go east and the closer we got, the more intent and excited he
got.  We were probably 50 yards away from his shelter when we spotted a
platic bag hanging from a tree up on the  hillside to our right, that
was beside his shelter.  I am writing up a complete story, but it will
probably be weeks before I finish it.  The other dog team was the blood
hound we got from South Carolina.  Bruce Hanson and the bloodhound were
on the North side of the canyon, watching in case the subject made a run
for it that way.  There were  “snipers” on all sides of the canyon with
high powered scoped rifles.  They didn’t have the authority to shoot on
sight, but would try to challenge and stop the subject if we drove him
out of the canyon.

… [unrelated material deleted] …

Doug

Share