The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming

State Briefs

Teenagers plead not guilty in shooting death

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Teenage cousins accused in last summer’s shooting death of a 14-year-old pleaded not guilty last week in Laramie County District Court.

Xavier Sanchez, 18, of Casper, appeared Thursday morning in front of Laramie County District Judge Peter Froelicher. He has been charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Raymond M. Sanchez, 16, of Cheyenne, is being charged as an adult with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. He appeared Friday afternoon in front of Laramie County District Judge Thomas Campbell.

Information collected by the Cheyenne Police Department points to the 14-year-old’s death having been the result of a gang-related conflict, or at least a conflict between two families.

According to court documents:

At 1:03 a.m. July 5, Cheyenne Police officers were dispatched to an apartment in the 1600 block of Taft Avenue in response to a report of shots fired. Upon arrival, officers observed a bullet hole in the door and a .45-caliber brass shell casing near the door.

Officers found a 14-year-old boy, identified as D.B. in the probable cause affidavit, lying on the floor with a large pool of blood to the right of his head. It was later determined D.B. had a suspected gunshot wound to his upper back.

The 14-year-old was pronounced dead by American Medical Response personnel at about 1:20 a.m.

Man arrested after threatening to shoot car dealership workers

GILLETTE (WNE) — A South Dakota man was arrested on a number of felony charges after threatening to shoot employees at Thunder Basin Ford on Thursday afternoon.

Staff at the dealership called police shortly after 3 p.m. to report that a 52-year-old man, David Allen, had threatened to shoot the workers there. He was upset because of something related to his vehicle, said Deputy Chief of Police Brent Wasson.

Four officers and a drug dog responded to the scene. When they arrived, Allen immediately ran north through the dealership’s east parking lot. After running a short distance, he turned around and faced officers. He had a 9-mm semiautomatic handgun, and he cycled the slide, Wasson said.

The officers commanded him to put the gun on the ground, and he complied. He was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault, two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of having a concealed weapon, Wasson said.

Allen is currently disqualified from having a gun, Wasson said.

Grand Teton culls 58 mountain goats

JACKSON (WNE) — Grand Teton National Park has concluded a cull of invasive mountain goats, killing 58 with an aerial gunning operation aimed at preventing the goats from competing for habitat with and potentially spreading disease to the Tetons’ isolated native bighorn sheep herd.

“Operations to remove non-native mountain goats from the park are complete,” Grand Teton Chief of Staff Jeremy Barnum told the Jackson Hole Daily on Friday.

The backcountry closure from Cascade Canyon to Berry Creek lifted Friday afternoon.

“Given the terrain it is hard to determine precisely how many mountain goats remain in the park,” Barnum said. “Every mountain goat that was located was removed, but we assume there could be a few remaining in the range.”

Mountain goats, which migrated to the Tetons from the Snake River Range, compete with the bighorns for limited high-elevation alpine habitat and carry diseases that can threaten the native bighorns, which are already cut off from their traditional low-elevation winter range by human development.

The bighorns, also under pressure from backcountry recreation, have lived in the Tetons for thousands of years. The park and its affiliated Bighorn Sheep Working Group have closed certain areas of the park to wintertime recreation and recently asked skiers to avoid other areas where bighorns dwell.

Last week marked the second time Grand Teton contracted helicopter gunners to fly into the park, targeting the invasive mountain goat herd.