Buzzby

Cheney Accidentally Shoots a Fellow Hunter
Anne E. Kornblut | New York Times | 02/12/2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a prominent Austin lawyer while the two men were on a quail hunting expedition in South Texas on Saturday, firing shotgun pellets at the man while trying to aim for a bird, his spokeswoman confirmed today.

Mr. Cheney, a practiced hunter, sprayed the lawyer, Harry Whittington, with shotgun pellets on an outing on the Armstrong ranch in South Texas.

(BuzzNote: A practiced hunter should know the basic rules of gun safety:

1) All guns are always loaded! (i.e. always treat guns as if they were loaded)
2) Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy!
3) Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target!
4) Always be sure of your target!)

Mr. Whittington, 78, was flown by helicopter to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition today, according to Michele Trevino, a hospital spokeswoman.

White House officials did not release details of the incident. But local news accounts in Texas suggested that Mr. Cheney fired his shotgun without realizing that Mr. Whittington had approached him from behind, spraying his fellow hunter on his right side, on his cheek, neck and chest.

"Nobody wants this to happen, but it does," Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch, told The Corpus Christi Caller-Times according to an article on the newspaper's Web site. The Caller-Times, which first reported the shooting incident, said that Mr. Whittington was a friend of the Armstrong family and was a frequent visitor to their ranch, one of the largest private properties in Texas.

(BuzzNote: "Nobody wants this to happen", but it did and it's a crime under Texas law.

§ 22.01. ASSAULT. (a) A person commits an offense if
the person:
(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes
bodily injury to another, including the person's spouse;
(b) An offense under Subsection (a)(1) is a Class A
misdemeanor.

§ 22.02. AGGRAVATED ASSAULT. (a) A person commits an
offense if the person commits assault as defined in § 22.01 and
the person:
(1) causes serious bodily injury to another, including
the person's spouse; or
(2) uses or exhibits a deadly weapon during the
commission of the assault.
(b) An offense under this section is a felony of the second
degree.

I didn't see anything about Big Dick getting arrested or charged. Why do you suppose that is? If the VP commits a felony, isn't that grounds for impeachment?)

Mr. Whittington is a former member of the Texas Board of Corrections, which runs the state's prison and he was once chairman of the Texas Public Finance Authority Board. In 1999, Gov. George W. Bush appointed him to the Texas Funeral Service Commission. In August 2002, he was reappointed to the commission for a term set to expire in February 2007.

White House officials, who did not make public the shooting incident for 24 hours, did not say how Mr. Whittington and Mr. Cheney were acquainted, although both have longstanding ties to the Armstrongs, a prominent Texas family. The White House also declined to say who was on the hunting trip with the two men. Local news accounts said that Secret Service agents attended to Mr. Whittington until the medics arrived.

The Armstrong ranch is a familiar hunting venue for Republican politicians, including Mr. Cheney, who sometimes hunts there several times a year.

Mr. Cheney often goes on hunting outings with other political figures. Two years ago he went duck hunting with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Louisiana, a trip that drew criticism because the Supreme Court had just agreed to hear a case involving Mr. Cheney's energy task force.

Anne Armstrong, the family matriarch, is a Republican Party stalwart who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations and also as ambassador to Britain. When her husband, Tobin Armstrong, died last October, Mr. Cheney and James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, spoke at the funeral.

The 50,000-acre ranch, which features Spanish-style cottages on the property and usually has a full working staff, including a chef, was settled in 1882 by a Texas Ranger named John Armstrong III, who passed the land on to the family. It sits near the King Ranch, the legendary property settled by the Kleberg family, also in South Texas.

Katharine Armstrong was in the hunting party on Saturday.

The Associated Press reported that Mrs. Armstrong was watching from a car as the vice president, Mr. Whittington and another unidentified hunter got out of the vehicle to close in on a covey of quail. She said Mr. Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, as his hunting companions walked to another spot where they found a second covey of quail.

Mr. Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Mrs. Armstrong told the A.P. "The vice president didn't see him. The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and show. And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

Campaign finance records show that Mr. Whittington contributed $2,000 — the maximum personal amount allowed — to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

Mr. Whittington has been involved in a long-running dispute with the city of Austin, which is trying to condemn a block his family owns to build a parking garage. He has won several legal victories in the case, most recently last month in the Texas Supreme Court.

Mr. Cheney visited Mr. Whittington in the hospital on Sunday, said the vice president's spokeswoman, Lea Ann McBride. After spending the weekend in Texas, Mr. Cheney was scheduled to return to Washington this evening.

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