News: Killer Veep Vows Revenge, Guns Down Lawyer

By Gurn Blanston, AP White House Correspondent

Vice President Dick Cheney shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, 78, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.

Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.

"The covey flushed and the Vice President picked out a bird and was following it and shot," she continued. "And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

Armstrong, owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident occurred, said Whittington was bleeding and Cheney was somewhat apologetic.

"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered by Dick pretty well myself. The Vice President sometimes injures people," said Armstrong.

In 2003, Vice President Cheney made headlines when his stray golf ball killed a Pakistani exchange student working as a busboy at his Wyoming country club. Sources say Cheney smoothed over the resulting tensions with a clandestine deal that included the covert assassination of an Indian government official.

In June 2001, Cheney reportedly struck his mailman while backing out of his driveway; a rate hike for third class postage was used to fund the carrier's lawsuit settlement.

In 1987 the preserved bodies of three vagrants were discovered in the crawl space of Cheney's Casper, Wyoming home. Charges were ultimately levied against the previous owner of the property, paralyzed veteran Marvin Holt, 87.

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