Jack Yantis’ home, just a little ways up U.S. 95 from the site of the confrontation that took his life
Jack Yantis, a 62-year-old rancher from Council, Idaho, received a call from the Adams County Sheriff's Office on November 1 informing him that one of his bulls had been struck by a car on the nearby interstate.
Yantis arrived at the scene a few minutes later, armed with a rifle to put down the wounded animal, which had turned aggressive and was threatening emergency responders trying to treat two people injured in the collision.Within a few minutes, Yantis was dead - shot by deputies on the scene. Upon hearing the news, his wife Donna suffered a heart attack. She was taken to Saint Alphonsus Hospital in Boise. As this is written she reportedly remains in critical condition.
"They took a family man from the dinner table and slaughtered him," declared Rowdy Paradis, who says he was standing ten feet from the rancher when he was killed.
Sheriff Ryan Zolland describes Yantis as
a well-known and widely respected figure in Adams County.
"This is going to be a big hit to this community," a visibly shaken Zolland told Boise's NBC affiliate, KTVB. "The gentleman involved, Mr. Yantis, was a well-known cattle rancher around here. It's just a sad deal for everybody involved, for the whole community."
Sheriff Zolland insisted that his department "takes matters involving any use of force very seriously and we have requested detectives with the Idaho State Police to conduct the investigation into this incident."
The deputies involved - one of whom reportedly suffered an unspecified "minor injury,"
are on paid leave.
Assuming that the investigation proceeds in familiar fashion,
the "incident" will not be treated as a suspected criminal homicide, but as an "assault on law enforcement." Taking its cues from law enforcement sources, the
Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise -
the state's most influential media organ - referred to Yantis's death as the result of a "shootout."That expression has connotations of an encounter between law enforcement and a violent criminal, rather than an eminently avoidable death that apparently occurred through miscommunication or, possibly, the panic-stricken reaction of deputies to the presence of an armed citizen. It should not be forgotten that Yantis was responding to a message from the sheriff's dispatch, and trying to assist the first responders, when he was fatally shot.
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