Armed Confrontation Ends with Arrest of Three Men at Yellowstone
A patrol ranger was called to the Grant Village campground to deal with a noise complaint and a reported disturbance on the evening of September 3rd. Upon arrival, he approached and contacted three men, all of whom immediately became abusive, threatening and hostile. Two of them threatened violence against the ranger, including statements that they would kill him. The ranger called for backup and made a tactical withdrawal. He also drew his taser as the men followed him back toward the car. Once in a better position, he drew his weapon and attempted to control the trio while awaiting arrival of backup.
The park’s special response team and rangers from the Grant, South, Lake and Old Faithful areas soon arrived on scene. During the initial stages of the standoff, the three men alternated between yelling obscenities and threats of violence and repeatedly entering and exiting their vehicles. One shouted that “someone is going to die tonight;” all three repeatedly challenged rangers to shoot them. The rangers brought out long guns and held the men at gunpoint. On several occasions, the men approached to within 20 feet of individual rangers and appeared to be engaged in some form of attempted police-assisted suicide.
The on-scene supervisory ranger developed a plan to take the men into custody. When she had a sufficient number of rangers in place, she had five of them fire tasers nearly simultaneously to incapacitate the trio, then had six other rangers swarm the men and take them into custody. One of the three suffered lacerations when he fell to the ground during the arrest. All three were taken to the jail in Jackson, Wyoming.
On September 5th, NPS special agents filed a five-count criminal complaint against two of them and a six-count complaint against the third. These charges included multiple counts for 18 USC 111 violations (assaulting, resisting, opposing, intimidating and interfering with rangers). They had initial appearances before the federal magistrate and are being held by the US Marshals Service pending a detention hearing this coming Monday.
Source: NPS
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