Man charged in Harrisburg shooting appears for first roll call hearing

ST. GEORGE – The man allegedly involved in the shooting at a trailer park, in the Harrisburg community of Washington County Nov. 27, appeared in Fifth District Court in St. George Monday.

Craig Manwill Bennett appeared today before Judge Rand Beacham for a roll call appearance via video feed from Purgatory Correctional Facility. This was the first of two roll call hearings available to a defendant and serves the court’s purpose in determining the status of the parties’ readiness to proceed toward preliminary hearing.

Aric Cramer and Ariel Taylor, Bennett’s attorneys, filed a motion for a mental competency evaluation of their client, which was not ruled on at the hearing.

The matter was thereupon continued to a second roll call hearing on Dec. 10, when the court will further assess the parties’ readiness to proceed.

Bennett was allegedly involved in the shooting at the St. George RV Resort in Harrisburg last week. The Hurricane City Police Department was called out to the scene where they encountered Bennett and an unnamed, 48-year-old male who, according to a police report, had received multiple wounds from a shotgun. The report also stated that leading up to the shooting, Bennett had allegedly threatened the man multiple times.

Life Flight helicopter at Harrisburg in response to shooting incident, Harrisburg, Utah, Nov. 17, 2012 | Photo by Chris Caldwell, St. George News.

The gunshot victim was taken by Flight Life to Las Vegas in critical condition. Nancy Perkins, public information officer for the Hurricane City Police Department, said she had not received any updates of the man’s condition since the initial incident.

Bennett was taken by police without incident and questioned. He was then arrested on multiple counts, one of which was second degree felony aggravated assault. He has since been charged by the Washington County Attorney’s Office for first degree felony attempted murder. Bail is currently set at $100,000.

Note: Persons arrested and charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

St. George News Editor, Joyce Kuzmanic, contributed to this report.

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Twitter: @MoriKessler

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2012, all rights reserved.

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