Man killed by ranger after domestic dispute

CRATER LAKE, Ore. – A domestic disturbance at Crater Lake National Park’s most popular campground ended with a park ranger fatally shooting a man armed with a club, authorities said Thursday.

Two rangers were called to the Mazama Campground near the southwest entrance to the park Wednesday at about 10 p.m. to quell a domestic disturbance and were immediately confronted by an angry man with a large club, said park spokesman Mac Brock.

“Still brandishing the club, still ignoring warnings to stop, he directly approached the rangers and threatened to kill them,” Brock said. “One ranger attempted to subdue the individual with OC pepper spray when he approached within 10 feet of the ranger.

“The individual was unaffected by the pepper spray and continued to advance. The individual was shot twice by the second ranger on the scene.”

The man, whose name was withheld pending notification of next of kin, was pronounced dead at the scene. The woman with him and the two rangers were not identified, either.

Tim Hughes and his family from San Dimas, Calif., heard the commotion while listening to the evening campfire lecture on the beauty of Crater Lake.

“You would hear this banging and then, ‘ARRRRG,’ ” said Hughes, who owns a party and equipment rental business and brought his wife and four children for their first visit to Crater Lake.

The interpretive ranger radioed for someone to check it out. When the lecture was over, Hughes and his family walked back to their tent trailer and found it was all going on right next door. A man was yelling obscenities inside the trailer next to them. Within minutes, two rangers rolled up and Hughes motioned with his flashlight where the commotion was.

Denise Hughes took the four kids inside the tent trailer, where she got Carmen, 11, and Gabriel, 4, to lay on the floor, but Emmett, 16, and Meghan, 14, stood up to watch. Tim Hughes stayed outside.

The rangers called for the man to come out to talk, but keep his hands in the air. The man emerged – a tall man in his thirties, his shirt off and tattoos on his arms – but did not put his hands up, Hughes recalled.

“The ranger said, ‘Do you want to go to jail?’ and his response was, ‘Do you want to die?’ ” Hughes said. “They suggested, ‘Let’s talk about it.’

“He went into a diatribe about, ‘Park rangers, you’re nobody,’ ” Hughes said. “He picked up something, what I don’t know, and just rushed toward the rangers and they just let him have it two times. He was hit in the upper torso.”

The woman inside the trailer came out screaming, Hughes said.

“She went running up to the guy and said, ‘You’ve (expletive deleted) killed him,” Hughes said. “She was hugging the guy.

“This guy was way out of control,” Hughes added. “They did all they could to try to get the guy to cooperate, but he was just gone. I think he must have been on narcotics, because he didn’t exhibit rational behavior.”

Investigators collected evidence from the scene Thursday, and interviewed an unidentified woman while sitting at a picnic table. Special agents from the National Park Service were also called in, as well as rangers from other parks, Brock said.

Shootings in national parks are rare, occurring about once every 10 years, said David Barna, chief of public affairs for the National Park Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.

They usually involve a fugitive fleeing inside a park and being shot by police.

Law enforcement rangers are all trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Academy in Glencoe, Ga., said Brock, a former law enforcement ranger himself.

“They are well-trained,” he said. “Being prepared and having it happen are two different things.”