Cops: Parks Worker Planned to Kill the Homeless

He shot people in their beds at detox center
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 21, 2015 4:45 AM CDT
Cops: Parks Worker Planned to Kill the Homeless
This photo from Saturday shows police officers surrounding the suspect in a shooting in Riverton, Wyo.   (Tibby McDowell/Riverton Ranger via AP)

A parks employee in a central Wyoming city who said he was incensed by homeless people drinking in parks slipped into a detox center over the weekend and shot two men in the head as they were lying in their beds, killing one and critically wounding the other, authorities charge. Roy Clyde, 32, of Riverton is charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. Clyde, who has worked for the city for 13 years, told investigators that he targeted the detox facility because he was tired of cleaning up after homeless people, per a police spokesman. "Basically he was angry at that, and that's what precipitated him to go and do this violent act," the spokesman says.

But there was no immediate indication that anyone inside the Center of Hope facility—including the victims—was homeless at the time of Saturday's attack. According to a police statement filed in court yesterday, Clyde told investigators he had long been considering killing people he referred to as "park rangers," which in Riverton refers to homeless alcoholics—most of them American Indians. Many come to the city from the surrounding Wind River Indian Reservation, where alcohol is illegal, and drink in the parks. A spokesman for the Northern Arapaho Tribe says both shooting victims were tribe members. Clyde, who called police after the shooting, is being held without bond. (More Wyoming stories.)

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