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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 2017)
FALL FUN: CORN MAZE, ZIPLINE READY TO OPEN IN ECHO/6A TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2017 141st Year, No. 251 WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD SHOOTING SPREE AT LAS VEGAS COUNTRY MUSIC FESTIVAL One dollar BOARDMAN Deputy cleared in I-84 shooting By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian AP Photo/Chris Carlson Investigators load a truck with bodies from the scene of a mass shooting at a music festival near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip Monday in Las Vegas. GUNMAN KILLS 59 Pendleton couple dives for cover, then helps wounded get out 527 injured as gunfi re comes from Mandalay Bay tower By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian By SALLY HO and REGINA GARCIA CANO Associated Press LAS VEGAS — The rapid-fi re popping sounded like fi recrackers at fi rst, and many in the crowd of 22,000 country music fans didn’t understand what was happening when the band stopped playing and singer Jason Aldean bolted off the stage. “That’s gunshots,” a man could be heard saying emphatically on a cell- phone video in the nearly half-minute of silence and confusion that followed. A woman pleaded with others: “Get down! Get down! Stay down!” Then the pop-pop-pop noise resumed. And pure terror set in. “People start screaming and yelling and we start running,” said Andrew Akiyoshi, who provided the cellphone video to The Asso- ciated Press. “You could feel the panic. You could feel like the bullets were fl ying above us. Everybody’s ducking down, running low to the ground.” While some concertgoers hit the ground, others pushed for the crowded exits, See VEGAS/11A Contributed photo Elaine and Kevin Anderson (on left) and Kevin’s sister, Kathleen Waters, smile for the camera shortly before heading back to a country music festival on Sun- day night in Las Vegas where 59 people died in a mass shooting. Elaine Anderson’s posts to her Facebook account this weekend seemed typical for someone on a Las Vegas vacation. Photographs of swimming in the hotel pool. The Bellagio Fountain. Images of a country music festival. Her post on Sunday night, however, was anything but typical. “Very scary tonight,” it started. “Many people killed…” She and her husband Kevin escaped with their lives after a gunman opened fi re on country music fans watching singer Jason Aldean at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival. The Pendleton couple dove for cover along with everyone else. The barrage of gunfi re killed at least 59 people and wounded more than 500 in the worst mass shooting in American history. SWAT offi cers swarmed the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and found the apparent shooter, Stephen Craig Paddock, 64, dead in his 32nd-fl oor hotel room with a cache of rifl es and ammunition. The Andersons had spent the See DEPUTY/12A “Please continue to pray for the families that were not as lucky as we were.” — Elaine Anderson, survivor of mass shooting at Route 91 Harvest country music festival LEFT: Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal / RIGHT:Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP photo LEFT: People assist a wounded woman at the Tropicana during an active shooter situation on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas Sunday. RIGHT: A broken window at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino is seen in the aftermath of a mass shooting on Monday. Morrow County District Attorney Justin Nelson said a grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing in deputy Aaron Haak’s Sept. 22 shooting of an armed man. The grand jury Monday afternoon watched police video footage from the shooting that took place along Interstate 84 near Boardman. The grand jury also heard testimony from the state police detective who investigated the case. After reviewing the evidence, he said he asked the jury if it wanted his offi ce to pursue charges against Haak. “And their response was no,” Nelson said. Nelson said the shooting victim, Efren Hurtado Jr., 26, of Boardman, is recovering at a Portland hospital, and was well enough to talk to police, in spite of taking a bullet to the head. Haak, of Heppner, parked his police car behind an older Chevy Tahoe on the west- bound side of Interstate 84 near the exit for Boardman in the early morning hours of Sept. 22. Nelson said other offi cers the day before noticed the vehicle, and Haak was going to make sure state police tagged it for towing. See DEPUTY/12A HERMISTON Graduation ceremony moved to Kennewick By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN East Oregonian After three months of discussion, research and community surveys, the Hermiston School Board made its decision Monday night: Hermiston High School’s Class of 2018 will toss their caps at the Toyota Center in Kennewick. The board voted 6-1 to move the ceremony across the river in June 2018, and will revisit local options afterward. Board member Jason Middleton was the lone “no” vote. “This has been a long process,” said board chair Karen Sherman. “But we know (the decision) is the best we can do for students and families.” See GRAD/12A PENDLETON State bars city from going public with marijuana revenue information By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian The city of Pendleton has received some marijuana sales tax revenue, but Finance Director Linda Carter will not disclose how much. At least not yet. When the city contracted with the Oregon Department of Revenue to collect the local 3 percent tax and the city’s share of the 17 percent state tax, Carter agreed not to publicly disclose how much money the city was receiving from marijuana sales taxes. While cities have interpreted this agreement differently, Carter said her understanding is that she’s not allowed to talk about how much money the city has received from marijuana tax revenue so far, although she characterized the amount as “minimal.” Joy Krawczyk, a spokeswoman for the department of revenue, said the rule is in place to protect businesses’ private fi nancial infor- mation. In cities or counties with 10 or fewer marijuana businesses, Krawczyk said, specifi c revenue fi gures could be used to identify See REVENUE/12A Fluffy clouds, fl uffy sheep Staff photo by E.J. Harris Cumulus clouds move slowly over a herd of sheep as they graze in a fi eld Monday east of Echo.
