C.F. teen escapes kidnapper; suspect later found dead
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor


CEDAR FALLS --- The daughter of a prominent Cedar Valley auto dealer bravely fought off a gun-wielding would-be kidnapper who shot her in the foot outside College Square Mall Tuesday night.

The tableau ended when officers found the gunman, Michael Lee Hruska, 33, of Waterloo, dead in his vehicle in a Waterloo park early today.

Daina Deery, 17, the daughter of auto dealer Dan Deery, escaped the ordeal with a shot through the foot and was home with her family this morning.

"My ACL hurt worse," Daina Deery, a senior at Cedar Falls High who was on the Homecoming Court this year, told The Courier this morning, referring to a previous sports injury. She was headed to Allen Hospital for a checkup this morning.

Deery said she was joining her family for dinner at Texas Roadhouse near the mall food court. She had been met by her brothers, Dustin and Dylan, when a man later identified as Hruska pulled up in his SUV in the mall crosswalk.

"He had the window down and points a gun at me and says, 'I'm going to shoot you,' " Daina Deery said. "I think it's a joke, because it's something you don't hear every day." She and her brothers turned to go in the restaurant.

Hruska then opened fire. "He starts shooting the gun like five times, and the second shot hits me in the foot," Deery said. "I'm laying on the ground and my brothers ran into the store" to get help, not realizing she had been hit in the confusion. Other bystanders reportedly ducked for cover. A lower window at the mall entrance was shattered.

"There's people all over. No one knows what's going on, and I'm laying on the ground," she said.

"And he comes up out of his car and grabs me by the elbow and says, 'Don't fight. Get in the car and don't fight me, otherwise, I'll kill you.'

"I said, 'Why would you do this?' Then he said, 'Because I'm going insane,'" Deery said, "I said, 'Please don't kill me, I'll give you any amount of money you want.' He said, 'I don't want that.'

"If I get into the car with him, either way, I'm going to die or he's going to shoot me there. I decided to try to save myself," Deery said.

She was halfway in the vehicle. "Half my body was on the (car) seat, and he's trying to push me in. We were fighting over the gun. I grabbed the gun. I tried to point it away, and he picks it up and he shoots it, but it goes in the air," because Deery was struggling with him for the gun.

"We struggle for a few minutes and a waiter came in from the mall and just ran up to the car and looked in and ran away," apparently to get help. "I thought someone was going to come in a second."

Deery's assailant then "starts hitting me in the back of the head, trying to knock me out so I wouldn't fight any more," she said. "He hit me five or six times," but not hard enough to knock her out. Deery said the assailant was about her height, but not as strong as her. Deery is an athlete at Cedar Falls High on the golf team.

At that point, about several minutes into the struggle, Deery said Jean Firman, the wife of Cedar Falls pharmacist Steve Firman, came up to the car. "She looks in the window and says, 'What's going on here?' I tell her that he said he's going to kill me."

Her assailant, apparently not wanting witnesses then relented. "He lets go of me, then drives off, and that's the end of it," Deery said.

Off-duty Cedar Falls firefighter Derek Brown, equipped with an emergency radio, called for help and comforted Deery until other authorities arrived. "I was pretty hysterical," she said.

Deery publicly expressed her gratitude to Firman, Brown, her family and everyone else at the scene who helped her. "It was a team effort," she said.

"I prayed to God" through the ordeal, Deery said. "I said, 'There's so much more I want to do with my life.' I was ready to fight him forever."

Deery said Firman's son, Barry, read the license plate number on the assailant's car. That enabled authorities to track him down.

Police had issued warrants seeking Hruska's arrest on charges of attempted murder, first-degree kidnapping and terrorism.

At about 5 a.m. today, Waterloo police found a blue GMC Jimmy parked at Katoski Greenbelt Park on Ridgeway Avenue in Waterloo.

Inside, they found Hruska dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Olson said.

"It is clear that he was going to put her in his vehicle and take her away," Cedar Falls Police Capt. Jeff Olson said this morning. However, Olson added, the act appeared to be random. No motive could be established.

Neighbors said Hruska could be violent if taunted.

A mall employee who declined to give his name said he was taking a break by the pop machines outside the entrance about 7:30 p.m. when it started.

He saw three people run toward the mall from the parking lot, and one of them darted out in front of a vehicle driving past. He said the vehicle almost hit the person.

The driver circled around and parked while the trio continued toward the entrance, he said.

The driver "just got out and started walking up, and that's when the shooting started," the witness said. He said there were about five or six shots.

Another witness, Pete Kieffer of Cedar Falls, was in the middle of the scene in the parking lot when the shooting unfolded. He was apparently between the gunman and the victim and heard what he first thought were firecrackers.

The girl was near the doors, screaming "don't shoot me, don't shoot me," Kieffer said. The attacker told him to get out of the way, and he ran for safety.

"He was firing right over my shoulder," said Kieffer.

Devin and Laura Range of Cedar Falls were driving by to get a birthday gift at the mall when they noticed a man trying to push a girl into the passenger side of an SUV in the parking lot.

"She was resisting big time," said Laura, who at first thought the scuffle was a parent-child argument.

Omri Ronen Lulu, a former Israeli Defense Forces soldier who now works at a kiosk in the mall, heard the gunfire and rushed see if he could help anyone with his medical training.

In the parking lot, he approached the man, who had his arms wrapped around the girl near the vehicle. What looked like a 9 mm pistol was in one of his hands, Lulu said.

"Step back," the man told him, and Lulu retreated to the mall.

Hruska is a Waterloo native who lived with his parents in a mobile home at 546 Montero Drive.

A relative, who briefly spoke with The Courier this morning, said Hruska suffered from bi-polar disorder and was on disability. He had been acting strangely for a while, the relative said.

Connie Rust, who has lived next door to Hruska for about five years, said the family is kind of reclusive, but Hruska has been known to fight with neighbor children when they teased him.

"They don't like being called names," Rust said.

Hruska would often sit in his SUV or in a chair next to the vehicle at length, and once pulled a child off a bicycle when the child made fun of him.

There was other weird behavior, Rust said. One day last winter, she caught Hruska peeking in her window and watched as he walked back to his parents' mobile home.

The family quit talking to Rust when she mentioned the incident to Hruska's parents.

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2005/11/02/news/metro/doc4368f96b5ff702504905...