A Gillette woman who woke earlier this month to bullets shooting through her windows and walls says she’s moving on with the help of her family, friends and God.
“I’m not gonna live in fear,” Sherry Rivenes, 74, told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. “I have to move forward. I’ve been to hell and back more times than anybody will ever know, and I survived.”
Rivenes woke at 4 a.m. May 6 to bullets blasting through her mobile home from a nearby residence on Echeta Road in west Gillette, according to court documents.
Her daughter lives with her but had left very early for work that morning and was not home, Rivenes said Friday.
Home alone, Rivenes called police.
When officers arrived, they could still hear gunshots. They set up a perimeter around the mobile home lot from which the shots were coming — even as the shots continued, according to an evidentiary affidavit by Gillette Police Detective Alan Stuber.
The lot in question was registered to Ty Roush, 38, the affidavit says.
Officers tried calling and texting Roush but reportedly got no answer. They called out to him to stop firing and step out of the home unarmed with his hands up. That didn’t work either, Stuber later recounted in the affidavit.
Roush allegedly kept shooting even as officers called out to him.
Officers called Rivenes and coordinated their efforts to get her out of her home. She told them she was “hunkered down” but that bullets kept coming through her walls and windows, and hitting furniture near her. Officers helped her exit the home safely and brought her — shaking and apparently in shock — into a patrol car for her safety.
Bring In The Bearcat
Agents brought in a Bearcat armored vehicle and called out to Roush on the loudspeaker, says the affidavit. The document says they contacted “as many neighbors as possible,” urging them to stay inside their homes as the bullets kept flying from Roush’s lot.
Fifteen minutes passed, reportedly.
A man later identified as Roush walked out the front door with an AR-15 rifle in his right hand, but he soon complied with commands to drop the rifle, says the affidavit. Officers reportedly commanded Roush to walk to the road with his hands in the air, then lie down on the ground.
They handcuffed him and told him his Miranda rights, to which he responded, “I know my rights. I have been arrested before,” the affidavit says.
Demon Woman
Roush allegedly told the officers there was a female inside his home, and she was a demon and she was coming out to get officers.
He also said the reason for the shooting was that he’d been at a Halloween party, according to the document.
He reportedly reeked of alcohol and struggled to balance. Campbell County emergency medical personnel arrived on scene, evaluated Roush and cleared him to go to jail.
On the way to the Campbell County Detention Center, Roush allegedly fought his handcuffs, cutting his wrists in the process. At jail he gave a 0.280% breath-alcohol concentration reading, says the affidavit.
Inside The Home
Police entered Roush’s home and conducted a protective sweep (and later a warranted search). But they didn’t find a demon woman or anyone else in the home, the document says.
Instead, they found bullet holes in the walls and 33 firearms, including rifles, handguns, shotguns, semi-automatic pistols and AR firearms, allegedly. The affidavit says they also found 19 spent rounds, and one live round near a recliner in the front room.
“I found a minimum of 30 bullet holes in the side of (Roush’s home),” Stuber wrote, adding that he’s been trained in shooting analysis.
Two More Neighbors
Stuber found another bullet hole in yet another neighboring home, reportedly. The woman who lives there couldn’t be reached until May 8, two days after the incident, when she invited Stuber into the home and showed him a bullet hole in her kitchen, says the affidavit.
She was inside and awake at 4 a.m. the day of the shooting and heard gunshots, she told Stuber. One shot was louder than the others, and she noticed drywall dust flying around in her kitchen, she said.
She went into her bedroom for safety and waited for the gunshots to stop.
Police collected a spent bullet fragment as evidence from her home, the document says.
Another neighbor contacted police after the attack (the affidavit says March 7, which is likely an error given the timeline), to report a bullet hole in her home, which Stuber photographed. That neighbor’s daughter had heard gunshots that morning, but she hadn’t, says the affidavit.
The Tally
Campbell County Deputy Attorney Sara Tappen charged Roush on May 7 with one count of felony property destruction and three counts of reckless endangering.
The felony charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines, while each of the three reckless endangering charges is punishable by up to one year in jail and $750 in fines.
Roush’s case rose to the felony-level Campbell County District Court on Tuesday.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
