PORT ANGELES — Four Olympic National Park rangers assisted in the hunt for a man who killed a Mount Rainier National Park ranger.
The four, who were not identified, were sent Sunday soon after the news was released of Ranger Margaret K. Anderson’s death.
Anderson, 34, was shot and killed in the Mount Rainier park when she used her official vehicle as a roadblock to stop a car that avoided a snow-chain checkpoint.
Anderson had never been assigned to Olympic National Park, said Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for ONP, but there are close ties between rangers at the two parks.
“We’re a small agency,” Maynes said. “We’re very close-knit.”
The four rangers sent to assist are trained for emergency response and skilled in winter operations, Maynes said.
“They’re all law enforcement qualified, and extensively trained,” she said.
Of the State Patrol troopers who assisted, none were from Clallam or Jefferson counties, said Trooper Todd Bartolac, spokesman for the State Patrol.
Memories of another killing
The killing brought back memories of a North Olympic Peninsula wilderness officer’s death in the line of duty.
U.S. Forest Service Officer Kristine Fairbanks, 51, was shot and killed Sept. 20, 2008, after she stopped a suspicious van in the Dungeness Forks campground about six miles south of Sequim .
Authorities said that Shawn Roe, 36, of Everett, fatally shot Fairbanks — a 51-year-old mother of one who lived in Forks — and believe that he also fatally shot Richard Ziegler, 59, who lived nearby.
Roe then drove to the Longhouse Market & Deli in Blyn, where he was killed in a shootout with Clallam County deputies.
More than 3,000 people gathered at Civic Field in Port Angeles for Fairbanks’ memorial service.
She was posthumously awarded the state Medal of Honor in May 2009.
