Pubdate: Sat, 03 Feb 2007
Source: Nevada Appeal (Carson City, NV)
Copyright: 2007 Nevada Appeal
Contact:  http://www.nevadaappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/896
Author: F.T. Norton
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

MAN CALLS SHOOTING A MISTAKE

Bail was increased to a half-million dollars on Friday for a Carson 
City man accused of shooting a deputy during a drug raid Thursday morning.

Mark Daniel Fiddler, 50, remains in the Carson City Jail on suspicion 
of attempted murder of a police officer.

On Thursday about 3 a.m., Deputy Joshua Stagliano and 10 other 
officers attempted to serve a search warrant relating to 
methamphetamine sales on Fiddler's Fall Street home.

Almost as soon as officers entered the home with a battering ram - 
after repeatedly knocking and announcing their intention - Fiddler 
allegedly opened fire with a .22-caliber rifle, striking Stagliano in 
the wrist, said Carson City Sheriff's Sgt. Darrin Sloan. A report 
Friday that there was a 20-minute lapse from the time of the first 
knock and when officers entered was incorrect, Sloan said.

Stagliano, a five-year veteran of the force under went surgery for 
what Sheriff Kenny Furlong described as a "shattered" wrist.

"This is all a mistake," Fiddler said during his arraignment Friday 
morning, and before Judge Robey Willis advised him to make no further 
statements. "I didn't know it was sheriffs in my house."

Willis increased Fiddler's bail from $75,000 to $500,000 at the 
request of Deputy District Attorney Tom Armstrong.

"You haven't been arrested on anything in 30 years," Willis said. 
"Not since 1976 in Flagstaff, Ariz." The details of that arrest were 
not available.

Willis noted that though Fiddler made "good money" working as an 
electrician, he only had $200 in savings. He appointed Fiddler a 
public defender.

"Is there any way, if I can get a hold of my mother, I can go around 
this public offender and get a private attorney?" Fiddler asked.

Willis said he could.

Investigators from the Department of Public Safety, with the 
assistance of the Washoe County Crime Lab, spent most of Thursday 
carrying items of evidence from Fiddler's home. Because this was an 
officer-involved shooting, state investigators take over the case, 
said Sheriff Furlong.

Fiddler's suspected girlfriend, Lillian Meyer, 42, is being held on 
suspicion of possession of methamphetamine for sales. She allegedly 
sold 1.5 grams of meth to a police informant, which prompted 
surveillance of the home and the search warrant.

Meyer, a convicted felon, was booked on suspicion of trafficking, but 
the charge changed after no other methamphetamine was found in the 
home. Under Nevada law, four grams or more of a controlled substances 
is considered trafficking.

The search warrant was part of the sheriff's department's increased 
efforts to combat methamphetamine in Carson City. Since the first of 
the year, more than a dozen people have been arrested, and more than 
117 grams of methamphetamine have been confiscated by the Special 
Enforcement Team.
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