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| Park Ranger Margaret Anderson who was fatally shot on Sunday |
A major manhunt resumed yesterday for an Iraq war veteran sought in the shooting death of a US federal ranger in Mount Rainier National Park, officials said.
Some 200 police and officials were searching the snow-shrouded park for the “armed and dangerous” suspect, identified by local media as Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, after the New Year’s Day shooting in the park.
Barnes had served in Iraq but suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Seattle Times, which linked Barnes to another shooting earlier Sunday in which four people were injured.
A photo of Barnes published by local media shows him with tattooed bare torso brandishing two large guns. The Seattle Times said he tried to commit suicide in January.
The manhunt for him resumed at first light, with police hunting Barnes’ tracks in deep snow - although it is believed the troubled ex soldier has advanced survival skills which could help him evade capture.
“It was scaled back overnight. There were no searchers out on the trail system... There were people still along the roads, watching .. but it was scaled back, and began with first light,” park spokeswoman Lee Taylor said.
The gunman allegedly killed 34-year-old park ranger Margaret Anderson after she set up a roadblock to corral the suspect who had sped away from an earlier traffic stop.
Barnes is reported to be a former soldier with previous run-ins with the law. He allegedly shot Anderson with a high-powered assault rifle before fleeing into the wilderness on foot at around 11am local time.
Nighttime temperatures below 30F (minus 34C) were expected as law enforcement officers search the expansive 368-sq-mile national park in Washington state, south of Seattle.
A car with weapons, body armor, and survivalist gear was discovered, although it was initially unclear if that car belonged to Barnes.
The park spokeswoman said that, assuming it was his car, “he appears to be somebody who has some good knowledge of surviving and the wilderness and so it’s quite a challenging task to apprehend him.”
“We are assuming that he’s armed and dangerous,” she said.
She added that some 150 visitors who were in the park at the time of the shooting - 125 at the main visitor centre, and 25 in a hotel - were evacuated overnight.
“There’s still 10 people remaining in the park, these are people who are in the back country, camping, and we’ll be trying to contact and get them out today,” she said.