Wyoming News Briefs

Gordon taps Secy. of State Buchanan as a judge

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Gov. Mark Gordon’s office announced Saturday morning that he has appointed Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan to be a district court judge for the 8th Judicial District, serving Goshen County. That has been his home county. 

Buchanan plans to remain in office for now “to fulfill his forthcoming duties and ensure a smooth transition before taking the bench,” according to a news release from the governor’s office. 

No timeline for him to assume the judgeship has been determined at this point, the governor’s spokesman, Michael Pearlman, wrote in an email to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. 

The appointment was widely expected after Buchanan first announced he would seek a second term as secretary of state, then changed his mind when Judge Patrick W. Korrell announced his retirement. 

“Goshen County is once again fortunate to have had outstanding candidates for this judgeship,” Gordon said in the release. “Ed has served the state admirably and honorably as secretary for more than four years. His extensive legal background, his compassion for those in his community, and his passion for the law and our justice system will serve him well as a district court judge in this next chapter of his public service career.”

“I am honored and humbled to receive this appointment from Governor Gordon,” Buchanan said in Saturday’s release. “I look forward to serving the citizens of the Eighth Judicial District and will work diligently to uphold the high standards of the judiciary. 

“I would like to assure our citizens that I am committed to fulfilling my duties prior to assuming the bench, both to ensure a smooth-hand secure election cycle and to finalize the many projects integral to the office,” Buchanan said. 

15-year-old bound over after alleged gun threats

GILLETTE (WNE) — The teenager accused of drunkenly approaching the wrong apartment with a large rifle and threatening the four women inside has been charged and bound over to District Court.

W.A.C. Jr., 15, was bound over to District Court on July 21 after Circuit Judge Lynda R. Bush found probable cause to suspect him of four felony counts of aggravated assault related to allegedly using a gun to threaten four people. He was also charged with a misdemeanor count of minor in consumption of alcohol, according to court documents.

He was arrested at about 2:30 a.m. July 13 after Gillette police officers were called to an apartment on Constitution Drive for the report of a man with a gun knocking on an apartment door and making threats.

The caller, 16, said she believed she heard the man outside, later identified as the 15-year-old boy, rack the gun while shouting to be let in and making threats.

A sheriff’s deputy arrived first where he found and detained the suspect.

The suspect told officers that his friend had stolen a bottle of Crown Royal and a case of Twisted Tea from him, according to the affidavit.

Because of that, the 15-year-old then went back into his friend’s residence and took his friend’s gun, a Browning .338. He told officers he thought he was going to his friend’s apartment to confront him about the theft and eventually realized he was at the wrong apartment.

Filmmaker, conservationist bequeaths $2 million to Grand Teton foundation

JACKSON (WNE) — Leslie Mattson got the news via snail mail.

“Needless to say, I screamed when I opened the letter, and it said how much it would be,” recalled the president of the Grand Teton National Park Foundation. What she was looking at was a roughly $2 million donation.

What was strange was that she’d never before heard from the donor, Myrna Berlet-Dietrich, who died in February 2021. 

Mattson did what anyone would do after receiving the letter: she googled the donor’s name. After learning that she was a wildlife filmmaker from Jackson, Michigan, with a passion for education, Mattson decided to set up an endowment with the money she’d given. 

Now, Berlet-Dietrich’s $2 million will support wildlife conservation programs like wolf conservation and tracking that the park foundation backs with philanthropic dollars, as well as youth programs like the National Park Service Academy, a federal program aimed at introducing a diverse slate of American students and young professionals to Park Service careers.

The money has been transferred to the Jackson Hole Community Foundation, which will invest it. The Grand Teton foundation will then put the investment’s annual yield toward conservation and youth programs.

“For us, it emphasizes the power of the connection that people have to this place, even if it’s coming once or twice a year to film educational movies,” Mattson said of Berlet-Dietrich’s donation.

Myra Berlet-Dietrich and her husband Walter Berlet made over 50 16-millimeter titles for classrooms and libraries, and 15 films for lectures, according to the Academic Film Archive of North America. A handful of those films appear to have touched on critters from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, with titles like “The Greater Sandhill Crane Story,” “Buffalo Still Roam,” “Life of the Bighorn Sheep” and “Trumpeter Swans Return.”

Standoff in Evanston ends with arrest

EVANSTON (WNE) –- Local law enforcement officers were able to de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation Tuesday night after their attempt to serve a warrant led to a standoff in the Aspen Grove area of Evanston. 

Evanston Police Department officers and agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) were involved in the incident. 

After officers arrived at 212 Toponce to serve Michael Mark Moore for bond revocation, Moore barricaded himself inside the residence, according to a press release issued by EPD. Moore was out on bond for a felony charge of delivery of a controlled substance. 

“Moore had recently been making threats to harm public officials on social media sites,” the press release states. “Officers had previously responded to Moore’s residence in the past for a self-inflicted gunshot wound from an AK-47 rifle. He was actively seeking to attain a firearm on social media to accomplish his tasks.” 

Officers secured the scene and reached out to the Sweetwater County Special Response Team for assistance, the release states, and Sweetwater County personnel and equipment soon arrived on scene. 

“After a short stand-off with the joint operations personnel, Moore was flushed from the residence and taken into custody,” the release states. “He was transported to the Evanston Regional Hospital for treatment and released. He was then transported to the Uinta County Detention Facility, where he is awaiting his court appearance.”

Wyoming, other states join in seeking injunction against “ghost gun” rule

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Wyoming is one of 17 states that have joined a petition for a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration’s “Ghost Gun” and Gun Registry Final Rule, which will go into effect on Aug. 24. 

On Monday, Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation filed the motion in the U.S. District Court for North Dakota. On Wednesday, Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill and her counterparts in 16 other states – Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia – joined in the filing. 

The request follows GOA and GOF’s initial lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the rule earlier this month, according to a news release. 

Among other provisions, the rule would require background checks on gun parts such as 80% kits, gun dealers to serialize and register privately made firearms which are taken into their inventory, and those holding federal firearms license (FFL) to permanently maintain all Firearm Transaction Records (Forms 4473). 

Under current policy, when an FFL dealer goes out of business, the most recent 20 years of records are transferred to ATF. But under the new record-keeping policy in the Final Rule, every transaction record would eventually be entered into ATF’s digital and searchable national gun registry. 

“Despite the ATF acknowledging serious issues with their preliminary rule, this anti-gun administration has made clear that they would not be deterred in going after ‘ghost guns’ one way or another,” said Sam Paredes, on behalf of the board of directors for the Gun Owners Foundation, in a release. “GOF is excited to partner with the chief law enforcement officers of so many states in this fight. We are confident that our challenge to this final rule has serious merit and that we will ultimately prevail in having it dismantled as unconstitutional in federal court.”