Dec.
14th
Connecticut school shooting stirs sad memories at Mount Rainier National Park
For Chuck Young, chief ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, tragedies like today’s elementary school shooting in Connecticut stir awful memories.
It was less than a year ago that his staff responded to a gunman in Mount Rainier National Park. When law enforcement ranger Margaret Anderson stopped the man, Benjamin Colton Barnes, on the morning of Jan. 1 she was shot and killed. Barnes fled into Rainier’s unforgiving wilderness where he was found dead, drowned in Paradise River, the next morning.
Some, including Young, believe Anderson’s actions may have prevented a Barnes from shooting park visitors at Paradise.
While park …