Four shot, one fatally, during deer season opener

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Four shot, one fatally, during  deer season opener
Associated Press

At least four hunters were shot, one fatally, in Minnesota during the opening weekend of the deer season. One was in critical condition on Monday.
Although all of the shootings were under investigation by local authorities, initial reports suggest they were all accidental.

Duane Kaster, 62, of rural Aurora, was in critical condition at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis after being shot by a 15-year-old member of his hunting party about 1½ miles east of Biwabik on the Iron Range.

The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office said the shooting was reported as an accidental discharge of a firearm during cleaning.

In Brown County on Monday, the Sheriff's Office was investigating the shooting of Brooks Lee Marti, 26, of New Ulm, just after noon Sunday. Marti was in a hunting party that was trying to flush deer in woods just east of Sleepy Eye when he was shot in the left arm by another person in the hunting party. He was taken to the Sleepy Eye Medical Center.

In Clearwater County in northwest Minnesota, Sheriff Mike Erickson reported that Jeffrey Pike of Chaska accidentally shot and wounded himself about 1:30 p.m. Saturday when he put his gun down and it fired, striking his right biceps. He was taken to a Fargo, N.D., hospital.

The fatality occurred on Saturday morning, when Craig Rupp, 60, was shot in the chest in his hometown of Elbow Lake while hunting. Elbow Lake is about 80 miles northwest of Willmar in western Minnesota.

Rupp was shot while others in his hunting party flushed deer out of tall grass, authorities said. A deer jumped up and shots were fired. One hit Rupp, who was a Grant County commissioner.