Guilty plea in shooting rampage; ATV rollover seriously injures two
Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Deline (May 14/01) - A 20-year-old Deline man is behind bars and two others are in hospital after a wild Tuesday night in Deline.
Two major incidents gripped the hamlet in the waning hours.
In the first incident, Deline RCMP responded to several calls of shots being fired.
Corporal Kurt Lozinski, NCO in charge of the Deline detachment, said that several homes reported "hearing buckshot pellets raining down on their roofs."
Witnesses told police that at least four rounds were fired toward the centre of the hamlet from a 12-gauge shotgun.
The suspect, Rayden Baton then barricaded himself in his parents' home for two hours, before trying to escape on foot. He was caught after a brief chase.
He told police that he said he was distraught over his girlfriend breaking up with him.
At his arraignment hearing last Friday in Yellowknife, Baton pleaded guilty to one charge of possession of a firearm for a dangerous purpose and was sentenced to three months in jail.
Thirty minutes after Baton started shooting, police received a report of a motor vehicle accident involving two riders on an ATV.
Lozinski said the driver of the ATV had lost control and hit a ditch.
Both the driver and passenger suffered life-threatening injuries and were medevaced to Edmonton.
The driver, 25 year-old Ryan Tetso is in critical but stable condition at Edmonton University Hospital. His passenger, 17-year-old Katrina Gully of Fort Good Hope, is in stable condition.
Alcohol was a factor in both incidents. Lozinski said that earlier in the evening, Tetso and Baton had been drinking together. Otherwise, he said, both incidents were "totally unrelated".
