Gunman Kills 1, Wounds 6 -- Police End Rampage By Shooting Bonney Lake Man

BONNEY LAKE, Pierce County - Lifelong resident Ricky Thorp took a mile-and-a-half walk along a sunny stretch of road yesterday just outside this rural town carrying only a rifle and a bullet clip loaded with bad intentions.

By the end of his walk, the road was littered with 10 injured people, one of whom died this morning. In all, eight people were shot, including the gunman. One person was hit by flying glass and another had an unspecified injury.

Three of the victims were shot in the head and face. One of them, Glen Anderson, 34, of Tacoma, died at 2:40 a.m. today at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he had been taken by helicopter yesterday.

The gunman himself was shot by police just as he raised his rifle one last time. He fell near the centerline of the Old Sumner-Buckley Highway east of Bonney Lake 43 minutes after shooting his first victim.

Thorp, 30, who authorities say has a long criminal history, was in serious condition today at St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma with a bullet wound in his abdomen.

"He just shot everything that moved, everybody he saw," said a dazed Dave Kneeland, a 30-year resident of the area and assistant chief of Pierce County Fire District 12, which coordinated the medical effort at the scene. "Nothing like this has ever happened here. Not here."

Of the eight wounded in yesterday's shootings, one is in critical condition and two were treated and released with minor injuries.

Michael Stott, 38, of Buckley, who was airlifted to Harborview, was in critical condition today with a gunshot wound to the head. At Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, a 39-year-old Buckley man was in stable condition with gunshot wounds to the face, elbow and shoulder, and another man was treated for a gunshot wound and released.

Two victims, Brian Stanley, 33, of Buckley and a 56-year-old Sumner man, each shot in the arm, were taken to Community Memorial Hospital in Enumclaw, where they were in satisfactory condition this morning. The Sumner man's wife suffered facial cuts from flying glass.

Two other victims, a man and a woman, were taken to Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, one with a gunshot wound and the other with an unspecified injury. The couple were treated and released.

Anderson was fatally shot as he backed his car out of a driveway, friends said.

Jim Stanley of Kent, Brian Stanley's brother, told The Associated Press that Thorp was "fiddling with the gun in the middle of the road," then walked up to the car and shot Anderson from less than two feet away.

Jim Stanley said his brother was standing outside the house and tried to attract Thorp's attention away from Anderson.

"My brother yelled at him and that's when he turned around and shot him in the arm," Jim Stanley said.

According to Brian Stanley, who had bullet fragments removed from his elbow, the slain man was a foreman at Stanley Plastics, a Buckley company that specializes in fiberglass-boat repair.

Yesterday afternoon, Anderson and Stanley, a co-worker, stopped by the Buckley home of Gary Jones. The pair planned to ask Jones to come work for them during the spring rush to repair boats.

Stanley said he and Anderson, known to his friends as Andy, drove to Jones' house in separate vehicles. Jones wasn't home, so the two talked with Jones' wife for a half hour, waiting for him to return. Finally, Stanley said, Anderson decided to leave.

"He said he had to get home, that his wife would worry if he was late," Stanley said. "He was always like that, always on time."

Anderson backed out of Jones' driveway and onto the Old Sumner-Buckley Road. Meanwhile, Thorp was walking down the middle of the road. Stanley saw his friend stop next to Thorp and assumed he was just curious about the gun - not afraid.

"It looked like he (Thorp) was loading the gun," Stanley said, "and I thought Andy said something to him. Then the guy just raised the gun and shot him."

Police said at least a dozen other people reported being shot at but not hit. "Calls (to 911) were coming in one right after the other," Kneeland said.

News of the rampage swept through this 7,000-inhabitant community of farms and open spaces about 30 miles southeast of Seattle as investigators were still searching for bullet casings along the highway. Police blocked off a three-mile stretch and worked through the night.

The incident, according to Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Curt Benson, began about 4:45 p.m. when Thorp left his house on the Buckley Tapps Highway, where he lives with his mother and brother. Thorp, wearing a black leather jacket, jeans and a black cap, was seen carrying his brother's .22-caliber Ruger rifle with a banana clip containing at least 25 bullets.

Police said he immediately shot a jogger and then another man passing in a pickup truck. Police said he then walked about 200 yards, crossing over a fence, to the Old Sumner Buckley Highway, where he calmly walked down the centerline shooting everybody he saw: motorists, people taking advantage of a sunny day to work in their yards, people coming out of their houses to see what the commotion was.

Eleanor Youngs, who was mowing her lawn, said she heard the "pop, pop, pop" of gunshots.

"In the beginning," she said, "I hardly realized what they were . . . and then I saw the person with the gun and he was shooting and he continued to shoot as he walked up the road."

Police said Thorp left a trail of bodies and vehicles lying at all sorts of angles on the highway.

A Buckley police cruiser arrived but was met by a bullet that went through the windshield and lodged in the dashboard in front of the steering wheel. The officer was unhurt and quickly backed away. A resident shot at Thorp but missed, Benson said.

Another squad car arrived, this time with a Pierce County deputy and a Bonney Lake police officer. Using a bullhorn, they repeatedly ordered the gunman to lay down his weapon. "Put it down, Thorp," they were heard to say.

At 5:28, as Thorp raised his rifle to a shooting position and continued to walk down the center of the highway, the Bonney Lake officer shot him from inside the squad car from about 100 feet, Benson said. Thorp was hit in the abdomen just above the right hip.

Benson said Thorp's mother, Janet Thorp, had called police about 10 minutes after the rampage began, reporting that her son was the shooter and that he might be on drugs.

She had barricaded herself inside her house in fear that her son might return. She later told police he had been agitated, acted irrationally and had not slept in several days. Benson said it's possible Thorp was on methamphetamines, or "speed."

Several neighbors described Thorp, a former dairy worker and firewood hauler, as a longtime troublemaker who was moody and often got drunk. At least one resident said Thorp always carried a handgun.

"He's not the type of person you'd care to be your pal," said Jeff Holter, a coal-truck driver. "He was not a very popular person around these parts."

-- Associated Press reporter Nancy Costello contributed to this report.