Cheney, a practiced hunter, shot the lawyer, Harry Whittington, on an outing at the Armstrong Ranch. Whittington, 78, was taken by helicopter to Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital where he was listed in stable condition on Sunday, according to Michele Trevino, a hospital spokeswoman.
A White House official, refusing to speak for attribution, said that no announcement about the shooting was made initially because the focus was on getting Whittington medical attention. The news was then delivered by Armstrong to her local newspaper. The White House only began confirming the incident on Sunday, a day after it occurred.
Campaign finance records show that Whittington contributed $2,000 -- the maximum personal amount allowed -- to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.
Whittington was about 30 feet away from the vice president when the shooting occurred, Armstrong said. Altogether, there were five people in the group. Armstrong declined to identify the other hunters. Each of the hunters was wearing a bright orange vest at the time, Armstrong said.
Cheney often goes hunting with other political figures. Two years ago he went duck hunting with Justice Antonin Scalia in Louisiana, a trip that drew criticism because the Supreme Court had just agreed to hear a case involving Cheney's energy task force.
Whittington was "sprayed -- peppered, is what we call it -- on his right side, on part of his face, neck, shoulder and rib cage, " she said.
Cheney was legally hunting with a license he purchased in November, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Steve Lightfoot told the Associated Press.
He blamed it on the need to provide medical treatment and get all the facts from those involved . “It's important always to work to make sure you get information out like this as quickly as possible,” he said. “But it is also important to make sure the first priority is where it should be, making sure that Mr. Whittington has the care that he needs.”
The vice president habitually conducts himself in a manner that suggests the worst possible motives. The most secretive high official in the most secretive administration in US history, Cheney functions more in the manner of an interior minister of a police state than a vice president operating according to the US Constitution. His comings and goings are often kept secret; his holding up during any crisis in a “secure, undisclosed location” is legendary. Cheney successfully withstood demands from the Congress and the General Accounting Office to provide information concerning his closed-door meetings in 2001 with oil and energy executives, including Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, now on trial on a myriad of fraud charges. According to all accounts, he is the administration’s leading champion of unfettered and almost unlimited executive power.
Cheney was reportedly wielding a 28-gauge shotgun and his victim was some 30 yards away when struck. Whittington received birdshot to the lower face, neck, shoulder and chest. He was airlifted by helicopter to Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital in nearby Corpus Christi, Texas.
Cheney is an avid hunter. He frequently shoots ducks in Arkansas, Texas and South Dakota; he also hunts in Georgia and South Dakota. In January 2004, Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia boarded a private Gulfstream V jet, landing in Morgan City, Louisiana, where they were guests of oilman Wallace Carline. The following day, they shot ducks at Carline’s private hunting preserve. At the time, the Supreme Court was hearing the case involving Cheney’s secret energy task force.
Some 18 hours after the accident, on Sunday morning, Katharine Armstrong, the co-owner of the ranch on which Cheney and Whittington were shooting, notified the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. When Cheney’s office was contacted by one of the newspaper’s journalists, almost 22 hours after the episode, his press representative confirmed the story. Asked whether the White House or Cheney’s office would ever have released the information had the reporter not contacted them, the vice president’s spokeswoman Lea Ann McBride commented, “I’m not going to speculate. When you put the call into me, I was able to confirm that account.”
In December 2003 he shot ducks and some 70 pen-raised pheasants at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in southwestern Pennsylvania . Time magazine’s web site notes that “there’s nothing wrong, legally at least, with blasting away at stocked birds. But depending on how and when they are released, it should not be confused with actual hunting, since disoriented birds placed in the field or released in front of the shooters are often neither as wary or elusive as wild quarry.”
That was the case when President Bush was riding a mountain bike last July in Scotland and collided with a policeman.” When Bush fell off his bike at his Crawford, Texas ranch in May 2004, suffering such minor injuries that they did not prevent him from riding back home, the news media carried the story the same evening.
Campaign finance records show that Mr. Whittington contributed $2,000 -- the maximum personal amount allowed -- to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. Mr. Whittington has been involved in a long-running dispute with the City of Austin, which is trying to condemn a block his family owns to build a parking garage.
Whittington and Mr. Cheney were acquainted, although both have longstanding ties to the Armstrong family.
Harry Whittington, 78, was hunting quail with Cheney on Armstrong Ranch in south Texas when Cheney sprayed his friend in the face and chest with the birdshot from a 28-gauge shotgun. Birdshot disperses a spray of small pellets rather than a single larger shotgun round.
Armstrong said the vice president's emergency personnel team responded more quickly than she would have.
Banko added that Whittington was alert when he saw him earlier in the day. Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president visited with Whittington and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
Cheney was legally hunting with a license he purchased in November, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Steve Lightfoot said. The vice president flew back to Washington on Sunday evening, according to his office.
Armstrong told FOX News that Cheney, thinking he was the last hunter on the right of the party, turned and fired at a quail. Whittington was standing 30 yards away on lower ground with the sun to his back. He was knocked to the ground, but not knocked out. All members of the hunting party were wearing blaze orange, she said.
Whittington sent word through a hospital official that he would have no comment on the incident out of respect for Cheney.
The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Whittington, an Austin attorney who gave $1,000 to President Bush's 2000 campaign and $2,000 to his 2004 re-election bid, was among a handful of people accompanying the vice president when the accident occurred Saturday afternoon.
Armstrong said Cheney was firing a 28-gauge shotgun, a small-bore weapon commonly used for hunting birds. Cheney has come to her ranch to hunt quail once a year for at least 15 years, and she called him "a very conscientious hunter."
The wounded man, 78-year-old Harry Whittington, was in intensive care at a Corpus Christi hospital after being hit by several pellets of birdshot Saturday afternoon, hospital spokesman Peter Banko told CNN.
Cheney, an avid hunter, was shooting at a covey of quail on the Armstrong Ranch near Kingsville, about 30 miles southwest of Corpus Christi. The ranch's owner, Katharine Armstrong, said Whittington was about 30 yards from Cheney when the vice president fired.
The vice president, his Secret Service detail and other companions rushed to the wounded man's aid, Armstrong said.
She said Whittington had just shot a quail and had dropped back to retrieve it. He was hit upon rejoining the group and "apparently came up unannounced" as Cheney prepared to fire.