Carl Drega

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Carl Drega (?1930–August 19, 1997) was a man from Columbia, New Hampshire, who killed 2 state troopers, a judge and a newspaper editor and wounded three other law enforcement officers before being shot to death in a firefight with police. The book The Ballad of Carl Drega by Vin Suprynowicz is named for him.

Drega had a long history of conflict with government officials over code enforcement issues, starting in the 1970s over whether he could use tarpaper to side his house. He claimed that in 1981, 80 feet of the riverbank along his property collapsed during a rainstorm. Drega decided to dump and pack enough dirt to repair the erosion damage, saying this would restore his lot along the Connecticut River to its original size. State officials, on the other hand, contested that Drega was trying to change the course of the river. In 1995, the town selectman Vickie Bunnell, accompanied a town tax assessor to Drega's property in a dispute over an assessment. Drega fired shots into the air to drive them away. Drega bought an AR-15 rifle and armor vest, and began equipping his property with early-warning electronic noise and motion detectors.

On August 19, 1997, at about 2:30, two New Hampshire State Troopers, Scott Phillips and Les Lord, stopped Drega in the parking lot of LaPerle's IGA supermarket in neighboring Colebrook, New Hampshire. Drega shot and killed both troopers. Drega then commandeered their vehicle and drove to the office of former selectman, then lawyer and part-time judge, Vickie Bunnell. Bunnell reportedly carried a handgun in her purse out of fear of Drega. She warned the staffers in the building to get out before she herself left by the back door. Drega went around the outside of the building and shot her in the back from a range of about 30 feet. Bunnell died. Dennis Joos, editor of the local Colebrook News and Sentinel, worked in the office housed in the same building. Unarmed, he ran out and tackled Drega. During the struggle for control of the gun, Drega shot Joos in the torso and back, killing him.

Drega then drove across the state line to Bloomfield, Vermont, where he fired at New Hampshire Fish and Game Warden Wayne Saunders, sending his car off the road. Saunders was struck on the badge and in the arm, but his injuries were not considered life-threatening. Police from various agencies soon spotted the abandoned police cruiser Drega had been driving. As they approached the vehicle, they began taking fire from a nearby hilltop where Drega had positioned himself, apparently still armed with the AR-15 and about 150 rounds of ammunition. He managed to wound two more New Hampshire state troopers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent before he was killed by police gunfire.