Recreational hunter wanted to kill game warden with explosives
A man from eastern Nebraska has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a US wildlife officer who had cited him for violations of fishing and hunting regulations.
Cody Cape, 23, from Blair, also pleaded guilty on 28 June 2022 in a federal courtroom in Omaha, Nebraska, to using a firearm during a violent crime, as the Omaha World-Herald reported.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors will seek a prison sentence of nearly 10 years for the recreational hunter at his sentencing in September.
According to prosecutors, Cape and a friend were cited in October 2020 near DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge for violating hunting and fishing laws. The friend later told police that Cape had driven past the home of the wildlife officer who had issued them the citation, and that Cape had forced the friend at gunpoint to drive past an area where he believed the officer to be. The friend also said Cape had explained to him how he could kill the officer and his family using explosives.
Blair police arrested Cody Cape on Christmas Eve 2020 during a traffic stop and reported finding a handgun and ammunition in his vehicle.
Officers questioned the woman who was with Cape when he was arrested. She stated that she had heard Cape say he wanted to kill the game warden who was investigating him for poaching. She said he had talked about «shooting up» the warden's house, and that she had believed he was serious.
When police questioned Cape, he admitted that he was «damn stressed» about the game warden's poaching investigation. He denied having kidnapped the man referred to as Victim 2, but admitted that they had driven past the game warden's house on 24 December.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
