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Troopers, Mounties Square Off in Shooting Competition in Palmer This Weekend

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Troopers and Mounties(PALMER, Alaska) – Alaska State Troopers will try to defend last year’s win over the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on home turf at the 53rd Annual International Police Shooting Competition taking place at the Palmer Shooting Range this weekend. A team of Troopers has won the team honors the past two years in a row – winning in both Whitehorse, Yukon in 2012 and Fairbanks in 2011.

The contest, known as “The Shoot,” pits a team of Troopers against a team of Canadian RCMP counterparts. After a day of practicing, on Sunday they’ll shoot side by side using the Troopers’ standard issue pistol, a .40-caliber Glock, to go through an AST course of fire, then use the RCMP’s standard issue 9 mm Smith and Wesson to go through the RCMP’s course of fire. The competitors then switch weapons and each shooter must complete the other teams course of fire using their partner’s sidearm. This relates to a case years ago where the Mounties and Troopers were working together to track down a suspect near Hyder, a border community in Southeastern Alaska with a neighboring Canadian community just across the international line. Policy prevented the Trooper from using his service weapon in Canada when the trooper crossed the border. The Mounties had to provide him with one of their weapons to use during the apprehension.

While the event is built up around a shooting contest, the occasion is more about camaraderie between the Troopers and Mounties. Shortly after Alaska became a state in 1959, Inspector Joe Vachon, commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, wanted to find a way for the Mounties and Troopers to get to know each other better on a personal basis as well as strengthen their working partnership. It is the longest standing international shooting competition in the world. Some of the Troopers competing this weekend have had to reach across the border and work with Mounties. The Shoot gives them an opportunity to establish and strengthen those long-standing relationships with the RCMP.

After the team portion on Sunday, members will compete individually in a tactical course that is separate from the overall team competition. Spouses also get a chance to compete in the Significant Other Shoot Off on Saturday. Visitors can watch the competition from designated areas at the range.

Schedule of Competition:

Saturday, June 22
09:00 – Team Practice at Palmer Range at end of S. Brooks Road off of Outer Springer Loop near Palmer
13:00 – Significant Other Shoot Off Competition at the Palmer Range

Sunday, June 23
08:00 – 53rd Shoot at Palmer Range
13:00 – Tactical Competition at the Palmer Range

D.C. Man Won’t Face Gun Charges for Shooting Pit Bull Attacking Boy

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Photo Credit: washington timesAuthorities last week made an agreement not to prosecute a Northwest D.C. man who used his unregistered handgun to kill a pit bull in order to stop it from mauling a child in his neighborhood.

As part of the agreement, Benjamin Srigley, 39, was required to pay a $1,000 fine but will not have criminal charges filed against him for the three unregistered firearms and the ammunition that investigators found in his possession, said Ted Gest, a spokesman for the office of the attorney general.

“We took it into account that he saved this boy’s life,” Mr. Gest said.

Possession of an unregistered firearm or ammunition in the District is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, and prosecutors said Mr. Srigley could have faced up to seven criminal charges in the case.

“In our recent memory this is a unique charge because of the unusual circumstances of this case,” said Mr. Gest, whose office generally prosecutes low-level crime in the District.

Read more from this story HERE.

This Week’s Biden Gaffe: VP Says Gabby Giffords Was ‘Mortally Wounded’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

According to the Vice President, former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was “mortally wounded.”

“Think about what happened out in — when Gabby Giffords, my good friend, was shot and mortally wounded,” Biden said during a gun control press conference on Thursday morning.

Biden held the press conference with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well as family members of shooting victims. The group was pushing for what they call “common sense” gun control legislation.

Watch video here:

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Batman Theater Shooter Converts To Islam

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Photo Credit: Associated Press

The man who shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” last summer has reportedly converted to Islam and prays up to five times a day.

A prison source say the beard James Holmes sported in court last months represents his new-found faith. The source said Mr. Holmes has turned Muslim as a way of justifying his horrific crimes on July 20 which left 12 people dead and 58 people wounded, the Daily Mail reports.

“He has brainwashed himself into believing he was on his own personal jihad and that his victims were infidels,” the source told the National Enquirer.

Mr. Holmes now prays five times a day, sticks to a strict Muslim diet and spends hours each day studying the Koran, the source told the Enquirer.

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Jury: Homer Police Not Responsible for Boy’s Injury

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A federal jury decided Thursday that Homer police were not responsible for the gunshot that left a Duluth woman’s young son brain damaged.

The boy, Jason Anderson Jr., was shot in 2006 at the Homer airport when marshals and Homer police officers tried to arrest his father, Jason Karlo Anderson, 31, a violent drug dealer who was hiding in Alaska. There is disagreement on whether the shot was fired by police or the boy’s father. Police say Anderson, a fugitive from Duluth, shot the boy and shot at police, then killed himself.

The boy’s mother, Cherry Dietzmann of Duluth, sued the city of Homer and its police department for more than $23 million, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Dietzmann settled out of court with the U.S. Marshals Service for almost $3.5 million in 2011. But the jury in the case against the city issued a verdict of not guilty on all counts, city manager Walt Wrede said in a statement.

Dietzmann’s lawyers said the city should pay more than $23 million to help the boy, now 9, and his mother with medical bills and future care and to compensate for his suffering. The boy is confined in a bed and lives with a feeding tube and ventilator.

The boy’s father served time in federal prison for kidnapping two men as a teenager and had been living in Alaska under an alias, Brandon Dietzmann. He was wanted on federal drug trafficking charges, and marshals initially sought to grab him while he was getting a rental car at the Homer Airport and separated from his children.

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Woman Killed In Chicago Hours After Her Sister Sat Behind Obama On Stage

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesAn 18-year-old Chicago woman was shot and killed Friday night, just hours after her younger sister sat onstage behind President Barack Obama as he spoke about gun violence.

Janay Mcfarlane was visiting friends and family when she was shot once in the head around 11:30 p.m. Friday in North Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The bullet had been meant for a friend, said her mother, Angela Blakely. Mcfarlane had a 3-month-old son.

“I really feel like somebody cut a part of my heart out,” Blakely said. Hours before the slaying, Mcfarlane’s 14-year-old sister Destini was part of a group of teens who sat onstage behind the president when he delivered remarks at Hyde Park Career Academy.

“Barack Obama said teenagers are killing each other,” Destini Mcfarlane told the Sun-Times Saturday. “He was saying we need to cut down on street violence.”

Mcfarlane’s murder was apparently separate from the four shootings that took place in Chicago within a 90-minute period after Obama left. Those shootings occurred between about 5:55 p.m. and 7:20 p.m.; Mcfarlane was killed several hours later.

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Video: Surveillance Camera Captures The Dramatic Moment When A Security Guard Used An AR-15 To Fend Off Armed Hold Up

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Photo Credit: WJBK-TVDramatic surveillance footage out of the Detroit area shows the heart-stopping moment when a gun-wielding couple stormed into a tax business and started shooting — and a security guard pulled out an AR-15 and drove them away.

The security guard suffered a non-life-threatening wound to the leg and the suspects got away, but otherwise no one was seriously injured in the shootout.

It happened Thursday at a converted home business in Inkster, Mich. A man and woman armed with handguns showed up at the door and announced a holdup, despite the security vehicle parked outside, WJBK-TV reported. The receptionist had gone up to greet them, with the business owner sitting in a chair in the corner. Surveillance footage shows the male suspect pointing a gun at the receptionist’s head, and the security guard scrambling in the back office for the rifle.

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Fort Hood Hero Says President Obama ‘Betrayed’ Her, Other Victims

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Photo Credit: ABC NewsThree years after the White House arranged a hero’s welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.

“Betrayed is a good word,” former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”

“Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of,” she said. “In fact they’ve been neglected.” There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley’s allegations.

Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder.

Tonight’s broadcast report also includes dramatic new video, obtained by ABC News, taken in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, capturing the chaos and terror of the day.

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‘We Have the Right to Defend Ourselves’: Community Rallies Around Utah Man Arrested for Shooting at Burglar

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Photo Credit: APResidents in a northern Utah city are coming to the defense of a man who was arrested and faces charges for shooting at burglars as they drove away from his property.

Layton police arrested Clare Niederhauser, 64, last week after he fired one shot at a car and another at a fleeing burglar, said Layton Police Lt. Shawn Horton. He was arrested on suspicion of two counts of reckless endangerment.

The shots were unlawful because the burglar had dropped a crowbar and was fleeing the property, according to Horton, who added that the shots could have endangered somebody’s life.

“There is a responsibility of owning a gun: you need to know when you can lawfully use your weapon,” Horton said. “You’re not authorized to shoot a firearm at a car just because you don’t want it to get away, or to scare them, or disable a tire.”

Layton police said they also have arrested the man suspected of burglarizing the house, Robert Santos Cruz, 47. Investigators are searching for a woman who drove the car that was leaving the driveway when Niederhauser shot at it.

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Guard Shoots Boy, 15, At FDA Office

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A security guard opened fire and wounded a 15-year-old boy at a FDA’s Food and Drug Administration regional facility in Bothell early Friday, according to police.

It was around 7 a.m. when two security officers approached a teen acting suspiciously in the building’s parking lot, said Shari Ireton with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

The teen ran away, but then came back a short time later and got into a car in the parking lot. As the security officers approached the car, the teen backed out and struck one of the security officers, who in turn fired at the car, Ireton said.

Bothell Police Sgt. Cedric Collins said earlier the teen crashed into another vehicle about a mile away on the Bothell-Everett Highway, but Ireton said officers found the teen at a home.

The teen had a gunshot wound to his foot and minor cuts to his face, Ireton said. He was taken to a a local hospital for treatment and was later released into police custody.

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