Suspect in Mt. Rainier shooting found dead in snow
Updated 5:54 p.m. ET
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. - An armed Iraq War veteran suspected of killing a Mount Rainier National Park ranger managed to evade snowshoe-wearing SWAT teams and dogs on his trail for nearly a day. He couldn't, however, escape chest-deep snow.
A plane searching the remote wilderness for Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, on Monday discovered his body lying face down on the mountain hours from where authorities could get to him.
Barnes is believed to have fled to the remote park on Sunday to hide after an earlier shooting at a New Year's house party near Seattle that wounded four, two critically. Authorities suspect he shot ranger Margaret Anderson later Sunday.
SWAT teams more used to urban standoffs trekked deep into the backcountry, unfamiliar territory for them.
"We have SWAT team members with snowshoes on the side of a mountain," Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said. "This has never happened before."
Immediately after Sunday's shooting, police cleared out the park of visitors and mounted a manhunt.
Fear that tourists could be caught in the crossfire in a shootout with Barnes, who had survivalist training, prompted officials to hold more than a 100 people at the visitors' center before evacuating them in the middle of the night.
AP Photo/Pierce County Sheriff's Department
He was involved in a custody dispute in July, during which his toddler daughter's mother sought a temporary restraining order against him, according to court documents.
The woman told authorities he was suicidal and possibly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after deploying to Iraq in 2007-2008, and had once sent her a text message saying "I want to die."
She alleged that he gets easily irritated, angry and depressed and keeps an arsenal of weapons in his home. She wrote that she feared for the child's safety. Undated photos provided by police showed a shirtless, tattooed Barnes brandishing two large weapons.
In November 2011, a guardian ad litem recommended parenting and communication classes for both parents and recommending Barnes be allowed to continue supervised visits with the child, two days a week.
That visitation schedule was to continue until he completed a domestic violence evaluation and mental health evaluation and complied with all treatment recommendations.
Late Sunday police said Barnes was a suspect in another shooting incident.
On New Year's, there was an argument at a house party in Skyway, south of Seattle, and gunfire erupted, police said. Barnes was connected to the shooting, said Sgt. Cindi West, King County Sheriff's spokeswoman.
Police believe Barnes headed to the remote park wilderness to "hide out" following the Skyway shooting.
"The speculation is that he may have come up here, specifically for that reason, to get away," parks spokesman Kevin Bacher told reporters early Monday. "The speculation is he threw some stuff in the car and headed up here to hide out."
Anderson had set up a roadblock Sunday morning to stop a man who had blown through a checkpoint rangers use to check if vehicles have tire chains for winter conditions. A gunman opened fire on her before she was able to exit her vehicle, authorities say.
Before fleeing, the gunman fired shots at both Anderson and the ranger that trailed him, but only Anderson was hit.
Anderson would have been armed, as she was one of the rangers tasked with law enforcement, parks spokesman Kevin Bacher said. Troyer said she was shot before she had even got out of the vehicle.
The shooting occurred on an unseasonably sunny and mild day. The park, which offers miles of wooded trails and spectacular vistas from which to see 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, draws between 1.5 million and 2 million visitors each year. The park remained closed to visitors Monday.
Park superintendent Randy King said Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two young girls who was married to another Rainier ranger, had served as a park ranger for about four years.
King said Anderson's husband also was working as a ranger elsewhere in the park at the time of the shooting.
"It's just a huge tragedy — for the family, the park and the park service," he said.
Adam Norton, a neighbor of Anderson's in the small town of Eatonville, Wash., said the ranger's family moved in about a year ago. He said they were not around much, but when they were Norton would see Anderson outside with her girls.
"They just seemed like the perfect family," he said.
The town of about 3,000 residents, which is a logging community overlooking Mount Rainier, is very close knit, he said.
"It's really sad right now," Norton said. "We take care of each other."
The shooting renewed debate about a federal law that made it legal for people to take loaded weapons into national parks. The 2010 law made possession of firearms subject to state gun laws.
Bill Wade, the outgoing chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, said Congress should be regretting its decision.
"The many congressmen and senators that voted for the legislation that allowed loaded weapons to be brought into the parks ought to be feeling pretty bad right now," said Wade.
Wade called Sunday's fatal shooting a tragedy that could have been prevented. He hopes Congress will reconsider the law that took effect in early 2010, but doubts that will happen in today's political climate.
Calls and emails to the National Rifle Association requesting comment were not immediately returned on Monday.
The NRA said media fears of gun violence in parks were unlikely to be realized, the NRA wrote in a statement about the law after it went into effect. "The new law affects firearms possession, not use," it said.
The group pushed for the law saying people have a right to defend themselves against park animals and other people.
Bacher, the parks spokesman, said surviving overnight in the open on Rainier is difficult, but not impossible for a person with gear and skills. He added that authorities wouldn't shed tears if Colton didn't survive.
"I don't think any of us would be sorry if he was not in a condition to fire on our searchers this morning," Bacher said.
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But I've also got to address Bill Wade's comments regarding the shooting of Ranger Anderson. What an idiot. His comment was moronic at best and down right sinister at worst.
The gunman was already suspected in the shooting of four people after a fight at a party earlier in the week...an act that is ALREADY illegal. For him to turn around and blame the laws that now allow people to carry loaded weapons into National parks is one of the most stupid things I've ever heard come out of someone's mouth. REALLY Bill? It is the fault of that specific law that Ranger Anderson was shot by this miscreant?
So I assume sir, that you believe that had that law not been put into place by Congress, some magical force field would have unloaded Barnes' weapons as soon as he crossed park grounds? No? You're not quite THAT stupid? Ok then, tell me exactly how it is that you think banning people from carrying loaded guns into the parks would have prevented this CRIMINAL (the definition of one who disobeys laws...like carrying loaded weapons into prohibited area maybe?) from bringing loaded weapons into the park.
Wade's assertion is mind-numbingly idiotic. It is, however, sadly a perfect example of the mental disorder epidemic that runs within the minds of people who are anti-gun at any expense. To try an convince people that they are safe from violent assault by firearm wielding thugs if only there are enough gun laws making it illegal to own/carry/keep loaded/take to a certain location etc, etc, etc ad nauseam is a GREAT disservice to the public. This fact cannot be disputed: Criminals are criminals BECAUSE they fail to obey the law. Therefore, NO amount of legislation you impose upon them will stop them from breaking said laws. If a criminal wants to carry a gun and commit a crime or shoot at law enforcement, your idea that making it illegal (it already is) is not going to stop them from doing so. Here's an idea: Stop coddling these people and make them pay when they break said laws. End early releases "for good behavior", end parole. STOP putting these "people" back out on the streets to live amongst the population!
Now I realize that Barnes was not a convicted felon released from prison. That does not change the point whatsoever: A man intent on staying out of prison after shooting up a party IS NOT going to suddenly drop his weapons off before entering your park just because you put some law into place that says he's not allowed to do so!!! IDIOT!
To think that you can will public safety with your utopian idealism is no different than being the proverbial ostrich who lives life with his head in the sand. Wake up Bill. I cannot believe we have simpletons like you in charge of anything greater than a taco stand in the Nation.
Your reasoning is mindless and unrealistic.
At least many people commenting here "get it". If guns are criminalized in Federal parks, only the criminals would have guns. This guy would not have been deterred. Any civilian confronted by this guy would be better off with a permitted conceal carry weapon.
I own several handguns and rifles, have for over 40 years, I served in the military during Vietnam, and I've never even been TEMPTED to shoot anyone. The only argument I have with your comment is this: The ranger WAS carrying a weapon, it wasn't even CONCEALED, and it didn't do her any good. That's why I don't bother getting a carry permit. If someone pulls a gun on me, he's already "got the drop on me", and by the time I pulled mine, I'd be shot.
This man wasn't following laws!
"There is a major problem with what you say about making statements in regard to ones mental health. You have people in the United States who do not even posses a high school diploma deciding who is mentally ill and who is not, it is a little more complicated than that."
Where did you get that little bit of information? Give us some examples and/or documentation. I think YOU have a mental health problem, and I have MORE than a high school diploma.
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]
-- (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD)
Actually, RaySlapper, according to Google Translate, the quote you posted translates as: "the sword as no one kills, the West is a weapon". Kind of interesting, don't you think?