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US shooter 'must have snapped'
09/10/2007 07:27 - (SA)
Crandon, Wisconsin - Shocked police and parents on Monday tried to piece together the mystery of why a young deputy sheriff with no past history of problems suddenly shot dead six close friends, including his ex-sweetheart, in this small US Midwestern town.
Family, friends and co-workers in the police department all said the same thing: there was no sign that anything was wrong with Tyler Peterson, 20, before he let loose a hail of 30 bullets during a party at his former girlfriend's house.
The youngest victim was just 14 years old and the others were either still in high school or recent graduates. Two were among Peterson's closest childhood friends.
"There is nothing that happened before or after yesterday's events that has given us any insight into why," Peterson's family said in a statement expressing their grief, guilt and shame.
"We may never receive the answers we all seek, and like all those close to Tyler, we are in shock and disbelief that he would do such terrible things. This was not the Tyler we knew and loved."
Argument at party
A 20-year-old man who survived the attack told investigators that Peterson had gotten into an argument with someone at the party and stormed out to grab a rifle from his truck shortly before 03:00 on Sunday.
As Peterson emerged from the house, he got into a firefight with a local police officer responding to the sound of the shots, who was injured by flying glass from his windshield before Peterson took off into the night.
Peterson sounded calm on Sunday afternoon as he tried to negotiate a peaceful surrender which ultimately ended in a shootout that left the off-duty deputy dead, said Forest County District Attorney Leon Stenz.
"I can't really say what he was thinking other than to say that we did talk to him," Stenz told a press conference.
"When I talked to him on the phone he was calm. He understood the dilemma that he was in."
One of Peterson's childhood friends who met with him just hours before the shooting said the deputy seemed perfectly normal.
'He must have just snapped'
On Saturday, he had chatted with friends in a parking lot about hunting and what was going on at the local school's "homecoming" weekend celebration. At 20:30 he said he was going home.
"He seemed fine," the friend told AFP. "He must have just snapped."
Peterson, who also served with the town's police, had passed the standard background checks and training but had not been subjected to psychological screening, Crandon Police Chief John Dennee said at the press conference.
"It's important to realise we had no indications obviously that anything like this occurred," he said.
"When it occurred, it was a shock to us just as much as anyone else, but I want you to know that ... once we realised he was our suspect he was no longer a cop. He was treated as a fugitive just like anyone else."
Dennee declined to comment on whether Peterson expressed remorse while they tried to negotiate a peaceful surrender.
Peterson did, however, admit to the crime, officials said.
With a population of less than 2 000, Crandon is known for its logging, fishing, hunting and snowmobiling. Located near the Canadian border, it is also home to the World Championship Off-Road Races.
The killings came six months after the worst school massacre in US history, when a deranged student shot dead 30 people in a classroom building at Virginia Tech university.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported last month that more than 1.4 million murders, rapes, robberies and assaults were committed around the United States last year - a violent crime every 22 seconds.
- AFP
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