A6 BAKER CITY HERALD • TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022
LOCAL
Police nab Hermiston man in connection to Island City burglary
Gorte’s son-in-law got into a vehicle and be-
gan following the sedan but pulled back when
a Union County Sheriff’s deputy, responding
to a 911 call from the store, took over the chase
toward Imbler.
Gorte said he thinks the two masked individ-
uals and their driver were responsible for the
earlier break-in and were attempting to rob the
store a second time.
BY DICK MASON, ISABELLA CROWLEY
AND SHANNON GOLDEN
The Observer
LA GRANDE — The arrest of a third suspect
involved in an attempted burglary and police
chase brings an end to a dramatic manhunt that
tied up police resources from several agencies.
Demus Montez, 36, Hermiston, evaded offi-
cers following the events Sunday, July 17, that
started in Island City. Police finally caught up
with Montez during the early morning hours
of July 19. Montez was identified by a motor-
ist who reported seeing an individual wearing
a black hooded sweatshirt crawl out of a field
near the Elgin Stampede grounds down High-
way 82, according to Union County Sheriff
Cody Bowen.
Deputies arrived on scene, arrested Montez
and booked him into the Union County Jail. He
was arrested on charges of attempted murder,
first-degree attempted robbery, unlawful use
of a weapon, felon in possession of a firearm,
criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and
misdemeanor fleeing.
Montez joins Jessica Spalinger, 31, of Walla
Walla, Washington, and Ashtin Romine, 26,
of Clarkston, Washington, who were arrested
around 10 p.m. July 17 in connection with the
episode that began with the attempted burglary
of Bullseye Muzzleloader’s and More, 10201 W.
First St., Island City, on July 17.
Gun shop’s owner Rick Gorte was pleased to
hear about the final capture.
“I’m glad that they got him,” he said. “He was
a danger to our community.”
Store owner recounts fending off masked men
Gorte was cleaning up shattered glass on
July 17 following a break-in at his gun store the
night before.
Gorte said around 2:30 p.m. two masked
Bighorns
Continued from A1
The disease also spread to
the county’s other herd of the
agile sheep, which roams in the
Burnt River Canyon between
Durkee and Bridgeport.
The sheep in the Burnt River
herd are California bighorns,
a different subspecies than
the larger Rocky Mountain
sheep that inhabits the Look-
out Mountain country between
its namesake mountain and
Brownlee Reservoir.
The strain of Mycoplasma
ovipneumoniae bacteria was
first detected in the Lookout
Mountain herd, which included
about 400 bighorns, in Febru-
ary 2020 when dead sheep were
found near the Snake River
Road above Brownlee Reservoir.
Tissue samples from dead
sheep confirmed the strain of
bacteria, the first time it had
been found in bighorn sheep in
Oregon.
During an aerial count in
late 2018, biologists counted
403 bighorns in the Lookout
Mountain unit, 250 in 2020 and
274 in 2021.
In Lookout Mountain, dif-
ferent herds, different results
in 2022
First the good news — and
it’s quite good, Ratliff said.
Two groups of sheep, one
frequenting Connor Creek
Canyon, the other in upper
Soda Creek, midway between
Huntington and Richland, pro-
duced a good crop of lambs this
year. And so far these lambs
seem to be doing well.
The ratio among those
groups was about one lamb per
ewe, Ratliff said.
“Clearly we had some lamb
survival,” he said on July 5.
In 2020, by contrast, biolo-
gists were initially optimistic be-
cause they didn’t find any dead
lambs in Lookout Mountain as
of mid June. They knew, from
earlier testing, that ewes don’t
infect their lambs prior to birth.
But later in the summer of
2020, as ewes and lambs con-
gregated in what biologists call
“nursery groups,” those lambs
started to sicken and die across
the Lookout Mountain area.
Ratliff and other biologists
concluded that all of the 65
Andrew Cutler/The Observer
A law enforcement officer stands near a bridge over
Shaw Creek outside of Elgin on Sunday, July 17, 2022.
Multiple law enforcements agencies were in the area
searching for a suspect after an attempted robbery
in Island City followed by a high-speed chase that in-
volved gunfire.
men attempted to enter the shattered glass door
of his store. He and the four family members
and two friends with him in his shop yelled at
the two masked men who then fled the scene.
The two individuals ran to and entered a white
sedan — later identified as a 2005 KIA Spectra
— parked west of the gun shop. Gorte’s daughter,
Randi Jo Shafer, stood in front of the sedan in an
effort to stop it from leaving. Its driver, identified
later during an interview with Oregon State Po-
lice detectives as Spalinger, attempted to run over
Shafer, Gorte said, but she leaped onto the hood
of the sedan before being thrown off as the vehi-
cle’s driver sped away. Shafer’s foot was injured as
a result, according to arrest documents.
As the sedan’s driver raced out of the park-
ing lot, Gorte’s son-in-law fired three shots at it
with a pistol. Gorte believes the shots may have
hit the sedan.
to 70 lambs born in the unit
during the spring of 2020 died
from bacteria-inducted pneu-
monia, along with an estimated
75 adult bighorns.
The situation wasn’t much
better in 2021.
After seeing quite a few
lambs in late spring and early
summer, by late August biol-
ogists knew of just five lambs
that had survived from that
year’s group.
During an aerial census late
in 2021, Ratliff counted just
four lambs.
This summer, the ewes and
lambs are in nursery groups in
upper Connor and Soda creeks,
but the lambs, unlike in 2020
and 2021, are surviving.
The situation is quite dire,
however, for another group of
bighorns, Ratliff said.
This bunch, which generally
stays at lower elevations near
the Snake River Road, running
along Brownlee Reservoir be-
tween Richland and Hunting-
ton, had lambs this spring, just
as in the previous two years.
But earlier this month, Ratliff
said, biologists didn’t see a sin-
gle lamb in the area, where they
counted 67 ewes.
Biologists did see lambs ear-
lier this year, he said.
They also saw several ewes
with swollen udders, indicating
they had recently been nursing
a lamb that, presumably, had
died.
Tracking ‘chronic shedders’
The key to combatting bac-
terial infection, Ratliff said, is
in sheep that can infect others
through nose-to-nose contact.
These “chronic shedders” of-
ten don’t get sick themselves.
But even a lone shedder can
rapidly infect a large group of
bighorns, many of which are
quite susceptible to the illness,
Ratliff said.
Chronically shedding ewes
are especially troublesome be-
cause they mingle with other
ewes, and lambs, much more
than rams, which are either sol-
itary or with other rams most
of the year.
ODFW’s strategy for finding
chronic shedders is labor- and
time-intensive, requiring that
biologists trap as many big-
horns as possible, test them for
the bacteria, and fit them with
tracking collars so they can be
tested later.
Sheep that are twice deter-
mined to be shedders will be
euthanized.
So far, ODFW has eutha-
nized two ewes in early spring
of this year, each from Lookout
Mountain unit and Burnt River
Canyon, after they were shown
to be chronic shedders of the
bacteria both times.
(Several sheep that were
shedding during a first test were
no longer shedding the bacteria
during a subsequent test. Other
chronic shedders died naturally
before they were tested twice.)
However, Ratliff said he’s
concerned about one ewe that
has been seen recently by mul-
tiple people near the Snake
River Road, in the vicinity of
Big Deacon Creek, which is be-
tween Connor and Soda creeks.
That ewe is clearly sick, he said,
with obvious symptoms such as
coughing and a snotty nose.
Although it’s not certain that
the ewe is infected with the
Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae
bacteria, that’s plausible, and of
great concern.
One infected sheep “could
wipe out that entire nursing
group,” Ratliff said.
He said two other ODFW
biologists recently found a ewe
that was suspected of being the
ill sheep, as it was in the same
area where the sick sheep had
been seen the previous day, but
it’s not clear whether the ewe
they found was the same.
The ewe the biologists saw
was decidedly spry, Ratliff said.
The sheep actually jumped
into Brownlee Reservoir and
swam faster than the biologists
could run along shore to track
it, he said.
Another concern is that the
lower-elevation herd, which lost
its entire crop of 2022 lambs and
might well include a chronic
shedder, will mingle with the
apparently healthy groups that
roam higher in the canyons that
drain into Brownlee.
So far, Ratliff said, there’s no
evidence of such mingling.
And data from tracking col-
lars fitted to sheep from each of
the groups shows that they stay
isolated more than biologists
expected, he said.
The chase and gunfire
According to arrest documents, shortly af-
ter fleeing the gun store, Spalinger switched
out from the driver’s seat with Romine, who
then drove the vehicle to Hunter Road where it
was located by pursuing law enforcement near
Booth Lane.
“When the vehicle passed me, I saw three oc-
cupants in the vehicle; a male in the driver’s seat
and a second male in the back seat and a third
person in the front seat,” Union County Sheriff’s
Sgt. Travis Schaad wrote in the arrest document.
Schaad attempted a traffic stop, but Romine
failed to yield and continued at speeds of ap-
proximately 105 mph.
The pursuit ended up on Summerville Road,
where Union County Sheriff’s Deputy Dane
Jensen reported shots were fired from the se-
dan, which shattered its rear window. One or
two bullets hit Jensen’s patrol vehicle, which
caused it to overheat.
The pursuit continued through Imbler onto
Striker Lane then north on Grays Corner Road.
They took Rinehart Lane to Indian Creek
where the vehicle crashed at the bridge on In-
dian Creek Road near Dutton Road.
Romine, Spalinger and Montez fled from the
vehicle into the dense brush and vegetation.
The Northeast Oregon Regional SWAT Team
and the Oregon State Police SWAT Team re-
sponded to the area and ultimately located and
“That’s a good thing,” Ratliff
said.
Until winter, anyway.
During that season the sheep
tend to descend toward the
river where temperatures are
warmer and snow often absent
for much of the winter.
Overall, Ratliff said, “things
are not dismal but not great.”
“We’ll see what happens in
early winter, when they start
mingling,” he said.
Ratliff said ODFW will soon
start trying to capture ewes
from the lower-elevation herd
to test them for the presence
of the bacteria and, potentially,
identify chronic shedders.
The goal, he said, is to do that
testing before the still isolated
nursing groups start to congre-
gate later in the year.
Origin remains a mystery
Ratliff said biologists don’t
arrested Spalinger and Romine late on July 17.
Romine was arrested for reckless endanger-
ment and for misdemeanor and felony fleeing,
while Spalinger is in jail for first-degree assault,
hit-and-run with injury, recklessly endangering
and misdemeanor fleeing from police.
“Spalinger admitted they knew the police
were attempting to stop them when I turned on
my overhead lights on Hunter Road,” Schaad
wrote in his report. “She stated Romine was
driving at this time, which corresponds with
what I saw when the vehicle passed me at
Booth and Hunter Road.”
The fallout
The owner of Bullseye Muzzleloader’s and
More said he has been overwhelmed by the ex-
pressions of support his family is receiving on
social media.
“It makes you feel like people care, for sure,”
Gorte said.
Gorte, who has owned his shop for almost 10
years, said he finds it hard to believe something
like this occurred in a place like Island City.
Gorte said he is relieved nobody suffered any
major injuries. His daughter received medical
treatment at Grande Ronde Hospital, according
to police documents.
“I’m glad that nobody has been hurt,” he said.
“My daughter’s foot will heal.”
“Our police force did an exceptional job,” he
said.
The court has appointed attorneys for Spal-
inger and Romine. La Grande’s James Schaeffer
is representing Spalinger, and Canyon City’s
Kathleen Dunn is the attorney for Romine.
They have hearing pleas scheduled for Aug. 15
and Aug. 22, respectively.
According to arrest documents, Montez is
being represented by Rick Dall of La Grande.
His plea hearing is set for Aug. 17.
know how the Lookout Moun-
tain herd was initially infected
with the bacteria.
Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae
bacteria are not known to be
carried by cattle, but domestic
sheep can be infected.
Domestic sheep graze on a
public land allotment, overseen
by the Bureau of Land Manage-
ment, in the Lookout Mountain
unit, Ratliff said. None of the
domestic sheep that graze on
that allotment has been tested
for the bacteria.
Two other domestic flocks
near Richland, at the north
end of the Lookout Mountain
unit, were tested in 2020 and
none carried the Mycoplasma
ovipneumoniae bacteria, Rat-
liff said. A llama owned by a
resident along the Snake River
Road was tested, and was also
negative for the bacteria.
Sheep in the Burnt River
Canyon began dying around
October 2020, and Ratliff be-
lieves sheep from that herd
crossed I-84 earlier in the year,
mingled with infected Look-
out Mountain bighorns and
became ill, then returned and
began spreading the bacteria
among Burnt River Canyon
sheep.
Burnt River Canyon
This herd is much smaller
than the Lookout Mountain
herd, with about 75 to 85 big-
horns. Although monitoring
the Burnt River Canyon herd
is more difficult because the
bighorns tend to congregate in
the steepest, most inaccessible
terrain, Ratliff said biologists
counted 14 lambs in the area
this spring.
That’s not far below the
pre-infection average of 25 to
30 lambs per year, he said.
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