Hours before a gunman opened fire at the entrance to a Yellowstone National Park In the employee dining hall, wounding a forest ranger, authorities had been warned that he was planning to commit a mass shooting at the facility, officials said Thursday.
The revelation comes as authorities released videos and other new details about the July 4 shooting in which park rangers posted to protect the Canyon Village facility killed Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, 28, of Milton, Florida, after opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle.
Authorities had been searching for Fussner for hours before the shooting, after a security guard called 911 just after midnight on July 4, saying Fussner had taken a woman hostage and told her he was going to attack the employees’ dining room.
Videos taken by rangers’ body cameras show a chaotic scene during and immediately after the shooting in the world’s first national park, a place millions of people enjoy each year for its wilderness and tranquility. In one of the videos, a ranger is seen shooting Fussner from inside a vehicle access door of the building.
In another video, another ranger outside the building approaches the wounded Fussner as he lies on the ground, dressed in black and with one hand raised upward at his elbow. Fussner remains motionless as the ranger reaches for his semi-automatic rifle and unstraps it.
According to park officials, Fussner was also armed with a semi-automatic pistol.
Body camera footage shows a third ranger running to the scene from nearby employee dormitories, yelling at unseen people, “Go back to your dorms!” As the ranger runs, a dozen gunshots ring out.
“Stay down! Stay down!” the ranger shouts to two people crouching behind the front wheel of an SUV. Authorities have blurred the faces of all the people in the videos, obscuring their identities.
As the ranger approaches the corner of a building, two other rangers stand with their rifles pointed, and someone shouts, “The suspect is down, he’s not moving!”
At the back entrance where the shooter attacked, photos show at least 18 bullet holes in the walls. There, the first ranger to exchange gunfire with Fussner was wounded in a “lower extremity,” park officials said.
Footage shows rangers approaching their injured colleague sitting on a concrete staircase landing.
“Is everything okay?” someone asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” the ranger replies, giving him a thumbs up.
Medical personnel attempted to help Fussner, but a doctor pronounced him dead, park officials said.
Besides Fussner, the ranger was the only person physically injured that day in an area that included about 200 park concession employees and visitors. The ranger was treated at a hospital and released a few days later, park officials said.
Park officials have not identified the rangers involved in the confrontation, including the five who were present at the scene of the shooting. Of the five, four activated their body cameras during and shortly after the shooting.
National Park Service policy requires rangers to activate their cameras as soon as they begin to come into contact with someone “except when confronted with an emergency situation requiring immediate action to preserve life or safety,” according to a National Park Service narrative accompanying Thursday’s edited footage of body camera video, a recording of the initial 911 call, photos and diagrams of the scene.
The shooting prompted authorities to close Canyon Lodge, a complex of hotel rooms, cabins and restaurants, for several days. The facility is operated by Yellowstone’s main tourism concessionaire, Xanterra Parks and Resorts, where Fussner worked during the summer season.
Rangers had been searching for Fussner for hours before the shooting. Late on July 3, Fussner held another concession worker against her will with a gun and a knife at her Canyon Village home.
Early on July 4, the woman reported that Fussner had threatened to kill her and others, including by carrying out a mass shooting during Independence Day events outside the park, park officials said in a statement five days after the shooting.
On Thursday, the text and voiceover added that Fussner told the woman he planned to carry out mass shootings in the employee dining room as well as Fourth of July events outside the park. Authorities did not say whether Fussner freed the woman or whether she escaped.
Yellowstone officials did not immediately respond to an email sent Thursday asking why they had not previously disclosed that Fussner had told the woman he was planning a mass shooting in the dining room.
The incident remains under investigation by the FBI, and authorities have yet to clear the rangers of any responsibility for the clash. Not all documents related to the clash have been made public.
The FBI did not immediately respond Thursday whether anyone other than rangers witnessed the shooting.
After receiving a 911 call shortly after midnight on July 4, rangers found Fussner’s vehicle, but not him. Inside, they found a handgun.
The overnight search for Fussner involved more than 20 park rangers, including a special park response team. Around 8 a.m. the next morning, Fussner approached the restaurant’s service entrance and opened fire.
Fussner’s Facebook page suggests he was proud to have landed a job at a Yellowstone concession, a typically seasonal job that often involves cooking and serving food to the park’s 3 million summer visitors. Such jobs are typically reserved for younger people, in their early 20s, and are often college students visiting from other countries.
Fussner posted a photo of his Xanterra Parks and Resorts badge and photos of himself in snowy Yellowstone landscapes in mid-May. Those posts did not hint at anger or other motivations.
Yellowstone National Park often makes headlines for sometimes fatal accidents involving wildlife and the park’s famous hot springs. But shootings, despite the park’s millions of visitors and the area’s high rate of gun ownership, are rare.
