Logger describes shoot-out in woods SCARY

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Not much else to go on here, but I thought any updates would be apreciated.

Search still on for shooting suspects
By Daily News staff

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Lincoln County authorities have released a sketch of a man they suspect was involved in the shooting of a Rhinelander man April 19.

Investigators have determined through the statements of the victim, John “Homer” Van Meter, that “a running gun battle” took place in the woods off of County Highway O and Poplar Road.

According to Van Meter, a logger, a black SUV pulled up to his work site at approximately noon on April 19 and a white male, described as short with blond hair, exited the vehicle and began shooting.

Authorities say Van Meter told them he hid behind his truck during the first volley of fire but eventually retrieved his own pistol and returned fire.


Van Meter said he believes he may have temporarily incapacitated the first assailant, who authorities believe was a passenger in the SUV, but was then confronted by the driver.

The driver, a taller man with dark hair, exited the vehicle with a long rifle and started shooting, Van Meter said.

Van Meter returned fire and believes he struck the driver of the SUV during the exchange but the driver was able to get back to the SUV, climb in and drive off. Van Meter then noticed that the passenger was running through the woods and gave chase, while exchanging gun fire with the man, until he lost sight of him. It was during this gun battle that Van Meter says he suffered wounds to his torso.

The sketch released this week is of the passenger. He is described as a white male in his early to mid 20's with short blond hair.

Authorities have said they do not believe Van Meter happened upon any illegal activity which precipitated the shooting. However, a motive for the shooting has not yet been determined.

Anyone with information about the shooting or who recognizes the man in the sketch is encouraged to call the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department at 453-5747 or 536-6272.
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More news from the area

Police release suspect sketch

Shows Lincoln County gun battle assailant

By Jessica Bock
Wausau Daily Herald
[email protected]


TOWN OF TOMAHAWK -- Detectives on Monday released a sketch of one of two men suspected in a shooting last week in Lincoln County that injured a 52-year-old man.


An artist met over the weekend with the victim, who is recovering from gunshots wounds. The gun battle with two men Wednesday deep in the woods has authorities searching for the men, who have been described as being in their early 20s.


John "Homer" Van Meter provided sufficient details about one of the men for the artist to put together a sketch, Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Koth said. Van Meter did not get a good enough look at the other gunman.


Deputies are circulating the pictures among law enforcement agencies in the area in the hope that someone will recognize the man.


Van Meter, a logger from the Rhinelander area, was in the woods Wednesday near Poplar Road in the town of Tomahawk when, he said, two men got out of a black sport-utility vehicle and shot at him. He returned fire with his own weapon, and the gunmen fled.


Van Meter described the passenger of the vehicle as 5 feet 5 inches tall and 130 pounds, with short blond hair. The man was wearing tan pants and a brown leather jacket.


Van Meter told investigators that one of his shots may have struck the man, who may have been wounded in the upper body. It is also possible the gunman has a disability, unrelated to the shooting, that affects his right arm, Koth said. Van Meter could not see an arm in the man's right jacket sleeve.


The shooting occurred at about noon, but Van Meter did not receive medical treatment until after a passer-by found him walking on a road and took him to a residence on Highway O. The Sheriff's Department received a call from the homeowner just after 6 p.m.


Dozens of residents have contacted the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department about the shooting, but none of the tips has led investigators to the suspects described by the victim.


Detectives ask that anyone with information about the suspects call the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department at 536-6272.


Half dozen ID sketch

Wausau Daily Herald

TOWN OF TOMAHAWK -- About six people have called authorities because they thought they recognized the sketch of a suspect in a shooting last week that injured a 52-year-old man.


But the calls have yet to yield any concrete leads, Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Koth said Tuesday. Detectives continue to work on the case, canceling their days off as they try to develop a motive and a list of suspects.


The man injured, John "Homer" Van Meter, provided an artist with enough details to draw a sketch of one of two suspects in the shooting last Wednesday in the woods near Poplar Road in the town of Tomahawk.


Van Meter, a logger from the Rhinelander area, told police he was in the woods when two men got out of a black sport-utility vehicle and shot at him. He said he returned fire with his own weapon, and the gunmen fled.


Van Meter described the passenger of the vehicle as 5 feet 5 inches tall and 130 pounds, with short blond hair. The man was wearing tan pants and a brown leather jacket.
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Pursue or escape?

I noticed the statement that the logger wasn't injured until during the pursuit of the passenger.

Given that this is a totally different self-defense situation from the "typical" urban encounter, would the logger have been better off to head in the other direction from the passenger after the SUV left? I'd be interested in what any current/former soldiers have to say about the S&T aspects of following a retreating (and wounded) foe.

(I understand the retreat could have been a ploy to launch a new attack on the logger.)

highdesert
 
I think in this case a good defense is a strong offense. Mr Van Meter did not know if this guy was running away to ambush him later or if he was really trying to get away. I think he was chasing after the guy to insure that he kept running and didn't think about turning around and coming back after him. It sounds like they must have gone a long ways becaus Mr Van Meter never turned around he just kept going until he found someone to give him a ride.
 
I think I would have pursed as well because: 1. I am alone 2. Two armed guys have attacked me and I don't how far they are willing to take it. 3. I don't know where his partner is.
 
Having logged off/on all my life and coming from a long line of loggers in the family (father still logging at 67 up in a camp in AK), uncles, cousins... all logging... I can say loggers most always have firearms. The only thing strange about that story is the logger was by himself. We always go into the woods with a partner. Should you get hurt (and it happens quite a bit) who's going to help you?
 
I think I would have pursued as well. Nothing worse than to have two attackers split up running free around you. They might be high-tailing it out, but they could just as easily regroup and come back much more sneakily. :)

I think you have a better chance to pursue and make sure they keep on going, but you have to be careful and not run into a hasty ambush. For instance, running full speed blindly and come aroudn a corner to find the perp standing off to the side waiting for you to rush on. And I would probably not pursue on his own tracks. If I am the logger I probably know that landscape far batter than the perps. Where the creek is, the best place to cross, the nearest road in that direction, etc. I would think I could use my knowledge to skirt his pathway and either ambush him, or at least keep pressure on him to keep moving along.

Once someone has tried to kill you out in the boonies I don't think you want to let them off scot free to try again.

I worked as a logger for a year and these guys are pretty aware of what's going on. I agree with the other poster that it is unwise to be working out there alone. However, it happens all the time. I remember one guy was out sawing on his own about 5 miles from where we were working, cut off his right arm on a kick-back, stumbled to his truck and drove 20+ miles to the hospital. One tough old bird.

The woods have many dangers. There are often wood poachers (I worked where cedar trees were poached), marijuana "farmers", and drifter/never-do-wells looking for an easy take. Now we also have meth cookers and camp ground robbers.

I know I am getting back into the woods when I see pickups with rifles in the windows again. In the city you would never do that because it could be stolen in seconds. But out in the woords, you might want to think twice before trying to steal a rifle out of a pickup. Folks are used to fending for themselves and don't expect the police to make out there for an hour or so at best.

I am also suprised that the logger wasted ammo on them. Most of us would have instinctively picked up our double bit axe and flung it at him. You get pretty accurate with axes and shovels during lunch breaks. :) Save the ammo for grabbing a deer or bear. Not that I ever poached game, but I have seen a lot of logger pickups with deer in the back. Utility line workers don't seem shy of picking up a deer now and then either so I bet they are armed, too.
 
Here is the latest update on the story about the logger:

The April 19 shoot-out in the woods of northern Wisconsin is not the first time that John “Homer” Van Meter has bumped against death, he says. Among them were two auto accidents and the time a tree fell on him. He's no stranger to bullets coming his way either.

“It's not the first time I've been shot,” the 52-year-old logger told The Daily News in an interview at his home Thursday. While he provided details about an auto accident that almost claimed his life at age 19, he declined to talk about the other shooting incident.

Investigators from the Lincoln and Oneida county sheriff's departments are working together to retrieve clues and develop leads about the events of April 19, the day Van Meter claims two men approached him as he was working in the woods outside Tomahawk and began shooting at him.

The gun battle lasted several hours and included a long chase through the woods, according to the account given authorities. When he emerged from the woods, Van Meter was bloodied and suffering from a gunshot to his abdomen, among other injuries.

After a hospitalization of several days at Aspirus Hospital in Wausau, he was discharged and returned home Wednesday night.

Van Meter and his wife, Darlene Machtan, live in a comfortable home just outside of Rhinelander. Beautiful prints of songbirds and plants grace the paneled walls. They have three dogs, including 115-pound Riley, a three-year-old Akita who was with Van Meter at the time of the shooting. Riley, with his long fur and weight, sizes up favorably with small hills. There's a rifle lying on the kitchen table where the interview takes place. But there are no other guns visible.

Van Meter openly admits to carrying loaded guns with him while driving to the woods - “Gun ain't loaded ain't worth a damn” - a quote he attributes to John Wayne.

Indeed as the interview progressed, he loaded two clips with .223 bullets and inserted one of them into the AR-15 lying on the table. It sat on his lap during the last 20 minutes of the interview. At the end he took the weapon into a bedroom and leaned it against the wall. He moved slowly under a housecoat that draped his tall and lanky frame. It's a testimony to the fact that the belly wound bothers him a lot. Though he takes note of it, he didn't grimace or complain of the pain.

He's been an independent logger for 32 years. “It's an awful lot of work for the pay,” he said, adding it's the outdoors and independence - “not having to answer to anyone” that he enjoys. “It's the only occupation left in this country that if someone (offends you), you can bop him on the nose and send them on their way and there's nothing they can do about it.” One does have to be on good terms with foresters and wood buyers, he added.

April 19 was a “typical logging day,” he said. “A (time) we loggers call breakup.” Road limits were on and he got a late start to the woods where he was going to work on his skidder in the tract located in the Spirit Falls area near Tomahawk.

He says he saw his assailants twice that morning, both times driving by his house. The first time, at about 7:30-7:35 a.m., he thought it might have been a neighbor. The vehicle (the same black SUV he said his assailants drove into the woods) stopped, and the driver turned around a short distance away. He didn't think much of it as lots of people drive slowly past their house because their dogs are penned outside. Even when the vehicle returned about 9:30 a.m., he “wasn't overly suspicious.”

That changed when he drove through Tomahawk, stopped to gas up his pickup truck and saw the same individuals. “These are the sons of bitches that passed by the house,” he recalls telling his dog. “Well, pup, we'll take them to the swamp and see what they are made of.”

He had a .45 caliber revolver tucked into his bib overalls - “It saved my life, no way around it.” He didn't see them again until he was working on the skidder. Riley jumped up, growled and barked. Both occupants got out; the passenger said, “He's mine.”

Van Meter says although he did not recognize either man, he's sure he saw them 18 months ago under circumstances that he was not willing to share, but did allow that the men were engaged in illegal activity then.

The logger said he ducked behind a wheel of the skidder and drew that “life-saving” .45 and thumbed the hammer to cock it. By then the driver had gotten off several shots. Riley had already run into the woods when the passenger - it looked as if the man had one arm, Van Meter says - came around the skidder with his own pistol in the air. As he brought it down to bear on him, Van Meter said he shot and hit him in the right side, knocking him down immediately.

(The man later got up, as did the other man who was shot at least twice with the .45 and slugs from a .12 gauge shotgun during the gunbattle. Van Meter says both men must have been wearing high-quality body armor to have survived.)

In the meantime, Van Meter said he dove for the front seat of the pickup truck to pick up more ammo. He also grabbed his 30.06 rifle, a high-velocity weapon that can penetrate body armor. As he slammed the bolt home on a round, gunfire from one of the assailants hit the rifle barrel, rendering it useless.

When he reached for the shotgun that was also behind the front seat, a second volley of rounds went into the pickup truck, hitting him. He says he was grazed on the forehead and had trouble staying conscious. Under the pickup truck by then, he shot at the legs of an assailant. “I saw the fabric fly off the pants leg. He wheeled around and fled.” Van Meter shot again and hit him in the back and knocked him down.

Van Meter said he got off all five rounds of birdshot in his shotgun, hitting one attacker in the face as he hid behind a tree. He reloaded with buckshot and slugs.

At one point Riley came back into the fray and was knocked down. Van Meter said he feared Riley had been killed, but now thinks a concussion from a round put him down temporarily.

The next few hours - the shooting started about noon - saw Van Meter exchanging gunfire with the original driver of the black SUV. The other individual fled with the vehicle, Van Meter said. During one of those exchanges, Van Meter said he jumped on a pile of logs and shot at the assailant waist-deep in the beaver pond. The man went down, but came back up. Van Meter says the chase was over four miles in the woods.

Heading to safety with his pickup wasn't an option, he said. The tires were shot out.

Sometime during that chase, he yelled at the attacker, “Give it up, I'll just arrest you and take you in. If you don't, I'll have to kill you.”

The other replied, “You are not going to catch me old man.”

Later, Van Meter who had three graze wounds on his forehead and torso, “got a little careless.” He says he was shot through the belly with either a 9 mm or a 380 caliber pistol.

The bullet entered the right side, and moved across to the left side.

Shortly afterward the chase ended. The man exited on a road. Van Meter said he heard a car door slam and the vehicle sped away. He didn't see enough of the vehicle to even see what color it was. Van Meter was picked up by a motorist who took him to a nearby home where a 9-1-1 call was made. He was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital in Tomahawk and then to Aspirus.

The doctors who operated on him removed 4-5 inches of his small intestines, removed the pancreas and repaired holes in the colon. In addition to the other graze wounds, he suffered a superficial wound to the calf of his right leg.

He said he's grateful for the cards, letters and phone calls from well-wishers. He also complimented both sheriff's departments for their work.

Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Koth said Van Meter is “a very private individual.” Van Meter mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the 34th Assembly District seat in 2000. He's authored and published the book: “Days of the Little Guy” and followed it up with ᅖ Days,” a sequel to Little Guy.

Jeff Simon, a sergeant investigator from Lincoln County's department, heads up the investigation. Two other sergeant investigators from Lincoln and at least one detective sergeant from the Oneida County Sheriff's Department are also working the case, as are the State Patrol and wardens. A composite sketch has been released based on a description of one of the men that Van Meter provided. It is of a white male in his early to mid 20's with blond hair.

Investigators are tracking down tips offered by the public and have conducted interviews with those who have had contact with Van Meter to see if past disputes may have led someone to attack him. They have recovered dozens of shell casings, all of a .223 caliber, from the scene.

Nothing has been ruled out, according to informed sources. Authorities are mystified about the bizarre nature of events that was told them. They are sure he didn't stumbled upon a meth lab, nor was there any marijuana cultivation going on.

Van Meter bristles at any suggestion that events were fabricated, the wounds self-inflicted. “Preposterous,” he says.

Sheriff Tom Koth of Lincoln says, “Preliminary evidence does not point to self-infliction. We have not come up anything that would be in conflict with what he's saying. We are treating him with the respect that a victim should have.”

Much of the evidence that was collected at the scene is still at the State Crime Lab awaiting analysis. Koth says there's no clear direction where their investigating is taking them.

“Nothing seems to be adding up,” he said. “We are keeping all our options on the table.”
 
Even more bizarre

This story gets stranger and stranger. It sounds like the whole thing hinges on the "illegal activity" he saw the two participating in previously. And I have to admit that his demeanor, as described during the interview, comes off as a little strange. Why the loaded AR-15 across his lap? Is he trying to send a message to his attackers?
 
They have recovered dozens of shell casings, all of a .223 caliber, from the scene.
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Nothing from the shotgun? Nothing from the .45?

This guy isn't telling the whole truth about what happened, but I think most people have kind of suspected that all along.
 
I don't consider his demeanor strange. You get shot at, knowing for some reason that they're really trying to kill you. You'd probably show some display of force at the news interview too. I sure as hell would!!! If I've done nothing wrong, I'm certainly not going down without a fight.

When I first started reading the article, I first thought about ECO-Terrorists, but then there's this previous incident that we don't have enough facts about. Maybe once they catch the BasT@$d$, then it'll all come out in the wash. Hopefully he injured them bad enough to seak medical attention and get caught that way. Maybe they just up'n blead to death. That'd be OK too.

Back to the chase or retreat question. If I was physically capable, had enought smarts and firepower to handle the situation, I'd be chase'n! Just like he did. I'd want to know who, and why! Makes it much easier to fullfil the revenge quota. (Legally of course...)

-Steve
 
WHat I want to know is how this guy can live without a pancreas?

Obviously, that 18 month earlier incident is what this is all about.

I wonder what they were doing and what he did to get them mad enought to try and murder him?
 
Wow this is getting stranger and stranger!! He is lucky he lives up north or he would be up on charges for carrying a concealed weapon.

I bet when he goes back out in the woods he will be carry the AR with him and a ton of other guns. I bet it is hard sleeping at night know that someone is gunning for you.
 
I think that without a pancreas, you become a Type 2(?) diabetic. My grandfather had his pancreas removed due to cancer, and required insulin shots (until the 2nd time :( ).
 
I don't know of too many loggers who bring a handgun and shotgun to work with them.
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I'm one that does. Glock on my hip and the M4 type Bushmaster nearby.

How well does MJ grow in the woods in Minnesota?
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Very well, at least as far as I know. This incident was in Visconsin though.

MJ is possible, but so are a couple of other illegal activities.
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I'm not sure that it is possible on April 19th up here.

And I hope this story turns out as true, which, once again, show the positives of CCW
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Too bad Wisconsin doesn't have concealed carry.
 
I don't find his demeanor strange either. In fact why would he be talking to a reporter about all the details? It is possible the police don't want him to release that right now. There seems to be a hint of a possible feud or interaction here that may be related that they were specifically targeting and waiting to hit him. It may even relate to something else that Van Meter doesn't want everyone to know about him.

It is an odd story, especially the hours of time he mentions which is certainly not the norm as I understand these kind of fights usually go. If all is as said, he is certainly lucky he survived the way he did.
 
I've been a logger for twenty years. heli-logging everywhere. colt 1991's been everywhere with me. we've seen LOTS of nut cases pop up just about every place we've been, grow season or not
 
I hate to bump a old thread however stumbled across it by mistake as I have grandparents who live in Tomahawk. I remember the area pretty well though it's been a few years since I been there. I remember it being very small, a lot of small bars and tons of trees/woods. I recall it was mainly white people (I seriously never saw any blacks or anyone else there). I don't really even recall a walmart there however my father and I did some shooting at the gun range across from my grandparents cottage a few times.

I'm really shocked to hear about the shooting, did they ever catch the guys who did it? Sounds like an interesting story.

Also the eco-terrorists thing, those ELF guys, do they really exist? Even then would they even consider using guns?
 
Homer sounds hinky to me. Even assuming the reporter played up Homer's behavior during the interviews, he's still seems hinky. Based on interaction with somewhat similar goofballs here, my money is on this being some kind of feud.
 
I guess logger ninjas are a lot tougher breed than mall ninjas, to the point that they will shoot themselves to make their stories look real.
 
I thought the rumor was he knew something somebody would rather he didn't.
 
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