Shooting Erupts At Athol Landing Strip Man In Serious Condition After Dispute Over Hangar; Deputies Report No Arrest

A dispute over a rented hangar on the end of a tiny airstrip turned violent Friday when a 49-year-old man was shot in the chest.

Roger S. Dunham of Athol was in intensive care at Kootenai Medical Center. His condition was listed as serious, a nursing supervisor said.

Dunham was shot “at least once” with a small caliber handgun about 12:45 p.m. while arguing with Ronald R. Fleming, 86, inside a hangar at Hackney Airpark, sheriff’s Sgt. Brad Maskell said.

Maskell said only that Fleming produced the gun. Sheriff’s officials refused to say whether the shooting was intentional or happened during a struggle.

Deputies questioned Fleming and a 61-year-old friend at the hangar off Hackney Airpark but refused comment when asked if Fleming had been arrested. Fleming was not listed as a Kootenai County Jail inmate late Friday.

The shooting comes amid a battle that has raged for more than four years among almost 30 landowners at the tiny, privately owned air strip in this town of 346. Half say the airpark should allow anyone to fly in. Others claim it’s private property and they must give permission to everyone taking off and landing.

Dunham, an airpark resident, has filed a lawsuit in Kootenai County 1st District Court, alleging his neighbors and fellow landowners misrepresented the airport to the Federal Aviation Administration and have refused to maintain the grass airfield.

Fleming is not named as a defendant in Dunham’s lawsuit but is mentioned in the text as a landowner living adjacent to the air strip who rents hangar space.

Dunham told The Idaho Spokesman-Review during a recent interview that he gives flight instruction, does aerial film work through his company, Rare Air, on the northeast end of the air field. His company would be hurt if the landowners choose to view the airport as a private sandbox, he said during the interview.

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