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Last modified Friday, October 15, 2004 12:42 PM PDT




Amber Alert: Abductor shot; boy unharmed

By Caron Alarab





Albany (OR) Democrat-Herald

Two Linn County deputies early today shot and killed a man who had taken an 11-year-old boy from his mother and who pointed a gun at the officers, Sheriff Dave Burright said.

Jeffrey Eggiman, 38, of Silverton, was shot at about 12:30 this morning in a pickup parked on a logging road off McDowell Creek Road north of Sweet Home.

Deputies administered first aid. Eggiman was pronounced dead when medics arrived a short time later.

Eleven-year-old Tanner Kahn, of Mount Angel, was found unharmed in the back seat of the pickup, where he had been sleeping.

Tanner was the subject of an Amber Alert issued by Mount Angel police at noon Thursday. His mother, Tanya Kahn of Mount Angel, reported her son had been abducted by Eggiman, who took the boy and her pickup.

The boy was returned to his mother this morning.

Oregon State Police identified Eggiman as an ex-boyfriend of Tanner's mother. According to Mount Angel police, he was not the father of the boy .

Burright said Eggiman was described as armed, dangerous and "highly aggressive" before deputies found him.

"Amber Alerts are not issued unless the child is truly in danger," he added.

Amber Alerts are bulletins, distributed through radio and television broadcasts and electronic highway signs, on kidnapped children and their abductors. They are named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted and later found murdered in Texas.

After issuing the alert, Mount Angel police received a call Thursday evening from a hunter in the foothills north of Sweet Home who had seen Eggiman and Tanner.

The hunter, who was not identified, told police they were in a pickup off a remote logging road near McDowell Creek Road. He mentioned he had recognized the pickup from the Amber Alert aired on television earlier in the day.

Mount Angel Police then contacted the Linn County Sheriff's Office and requested that deputies search the area.

At about 12:25 a.m., deputies located the pickup, a dark gray Ford Ranger 4X4 with the license plate X-KAHN. It was on land owned by Cascade Timber 1.1 miles miles from McDowell Creek Road and a few miles northeast of Camp Tadmor.

The sheriff said Cpl. Mike Harmon and Deputy Micah Smith approached the pickup and the man in the driver's seat appeared to be sleeping.

When they announced that they were from the sheriff's office, the man took out a handgun, began waving it around and then pointed it toward Harmon and Smith, Burright said.

"At that point both deputies fired their duty weapons and struck the man," the sheriff said.

The man, later identified as Eggiman, was hit on the right leg and a hand, according to the dispatch report.

As standard policy, Harmon and Smith have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, being conducted by Marion County Sheriff's Office, Burright said.

Harmon has been in law enforcement for eight years and with the Linn sheriff's office since October 2000. Smith has worked for the office for less than a year but had been a seasonal volunteer for several years.

Eggiman was the first suspect to be fatally shot by a Linn County sheriff's deputy.



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