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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT Thursday, September 13, 2012 INCIDENTS Hot Springs NP Rangers Deal With Numerous Incidents During Motorcycle Rally The city of Hot Springs hosted its seventh annual Hot Springs Motorcycle Rally from September 6th through September 8th. An estimated 4,000 bikers converged on the city for the event. Hot Springs National Park was the scene for a motorcycle parade and a 5k run. Rangers were very busy during the three day event, working longer hours and bringing in additional support from Natchez Trace Parkway in order to maximize public safety. During the rally, they responded to the following incidents: Rangers were called during the morning of the 6th to assist with a double stabbing at a trailer park just outside park boundaries. Upon arrival, they found one murder victim lying in the roadway, suffering from extreme body trauma, and a second severely injured man sitting on the porch of the trailer. He suffered severe lacerations to his stomach to the point that his intestines were exposed. The suspect in the murder was found a short distance away. On Friday evening, rangers and local police responded to an urgent call of “shots fired” with an “officer down” several blocks from the park. After searching the area and finding no evidence of a shooting, it was determined that the call was a prank. From Thursday through Sunday morning, rangers made two arrests for public intoxication, three arrests for DUI and one arrest for DUI drugs after a driver was found to driving incoherently through the campground. They also issued 24 citations and 61 warnings and arrested two fugitives from justice. Rangers investigated four motor vehicle crashes, one of which involved a driver rolling his vehicle over on the Gulpha Gorge Road and another in which a motorcycle slammed into a guardrail at a high rate of speed on the same road. During the event, a patrol vehicle was carrying patrol bicycles was damaged when it was rear-ended by an inattentive driver. [John K. Hughes, Chief Ranger] Mount Rainier NP Two Bodies Recovered From Paradise Glacier During a routine resupply flight to Camp Muir last Thursday, a body was spotted on the edge of a large crevasse at the 8,200 feet elevation near the top of the Paradise Glacier. The body, which was recovered the next day, has been identified by the county medical examiner as that of M.T., a hiker who disappeared during a series of storms in mid-January. The body of her hiking partner, Mark Vucich, was recovered on the Muir Snowfield less than a mile away on August 6th. On Friday, a third body was found just a few feet from M.T. It was determined to be that of S.“E.”Y., one member of a two-person climbing team that disappeared at the same time in January. Sill missing is S.Y.'s partner, S.H.J. of South Korea. On Saturday, under ideal weather conditions, searchers scoured the mountainside for further evidence, using snow probes, shovels, a helicopter, a search dog, metal detectors and a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECCO" RECCO transceiver, but found nothing. Efforts have been scaled back to a continuous limited search, with hopes that additional clues will melt out before the end of summer. [R. Chuck Young, Chief Ranger] OTHER NEWS The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS. To see the full text, including images, NPS employees should go to the InsideNPS home page ( HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index). Non-NPS employees can see most of them on the NPS Digest page ( HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/): Northeast Region - The statue of Alexander Hamilton at Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park has been lustrously restored thanks to the work of Gettysburg National Military Park technicians. The White House - President Obama has directed that all United States flags be flown at half staff through sunset on Sunday evening in memory of the State Department employees killed in Libya. Denver Service Center - The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is once again glistening with water with its $34 million rehabilitation project completed. The pool had been closed since 2010 to reconstruct both the pool and surrounding landscape. Alaska Region - A new agreement has been signed on the National Park Service's "Shared Beringian Heritage" program following a meeting in Vladivostok between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Joshua Tree NP - Jeff Ohlfs has been named the new chief of visitor and resource protection at Joshua Tree National Park. Ohlfs replaces retired chief ranger Judy Bartzatt. * * * * The Morning Report is a publication of the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, produced by the Office of Communications with the support of the Office of the Associate Director for Information Resources. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov). --- ### --- |