Fort Bragg ex-mayor reported shot

<p>The former mayor of Fort Bragg, Jere Melo, was believed to have been shot and was missing Saturday after encountering a pot farm guard while checking on rugged timberland he manages, sources said.</p><p>A shooting occurred around 10:20 a.m. about four miles east of Fort Bragg on the remote terrain of a private timber company near the Noyo River, according a release by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.</p><p>The sheriff's office identified the suspected shooter as Aaron Bassler, a transient from Fort Bragg, and said that the SWAT team had been sent to the area to locate any victim.</p><p>Sheriff Tom Allman would not comment further on the case late Saturday night.</p><p>But a worker on the Skunk Train and a source close to the family gave a fuller picture of what unfolded.</p><p>Passengers aboard the historic train that was heading east from Fort Bragg taking a scenic route to Northspur heard seven or eight shots as the train approached a tunnel a few miles east of Ft. Bragg, said Marnie Elder, a photographer for the Skunk Train.</p><p>Melo apparently was walking with a friend to inspect the Hawthorne-Campell Timber Management land when they came across a marijuana crop and encountered a guard.</p><p>“He's a forester, and he was out with somebody else, basically walking the land to make sure there aren't pot farmers on the land,” Elder said. “And that's where the man who was fully armored, dressed all in black, with a semi-automatic weapon,” Elder said.</p><p>Melo's friend escaped the shooting, which Elder said occurred on Sherwood Road, and then ran and flagged down the driver of the train for help.</p><p>The sheriff's department said that an unidentified “independent witness” to the shooting fled, called law enforcement using a cell phone, and reported “they were conducting property management in the area when the suspected gunman started shooting at them.”</p><p>Fort Bragg police officers, CHP and Fish and Game officers have been searching the area. </p><p>“Our SWAT teams are out in the woods as we speak, trying to locate any suspects and victims,” said Sheriff's Sgt. Greg Stefani late Friday night. “At this point, it's a very dynamic, problematic thing.”</p><p>Melo is well known in Mendocino County. He has been a city councilman since 1996 and was mayor from 2000 to 2004.</p><p>He has lived in or near Fort Bragg since 1966, when he began working for the Union Lumber Company as a forester. He continued to work for the company when it was purchased by Georgia-Pacific.</p><p>He received the Redwood Region Logging Conference's annual lifetime achievement award in 2002.</p><p>He started in the timber industry more than 50 years ago as a teenager shoveling sawdust in a Mt. Shasta sawmill. Melo paid his own way through UC Berkeley, graduating in 1964 with a degree in forestry.</p>