Hudson man accused of trying to kill son in shooting spree

One long afternoon in a Hudson, Wis., bar led to this: a drunken rage, at least seven shots fired from a high-powered handgun, four teenagers scrambling for their lives, a wave of responding police officers, volleys of pepper spray into a house and an assailant critically wounded as police returned his gunfire.

That's the harrowing scene described in attempted homicide charges filed Wednesday against Daniel C. Christenson, accused of trying to kill his son and two police officers on Oct. 17.

Christenson, 43, was charged in St. Croix County Circuit Court with seven felonies, including three counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

According to the criminal complaint, the chain of events happened this way:

Zachary Christenson, 19, was at the house at 1321 St. Croix Heights with three teenage friends on a Saturday evening when the elder Christenson came home drunk from a downtown bar. The father stated that "he was going to kill Zachary by blowing his head off" and began firing a Glock handgun.

Zachary's friends hid in a basement closet. One of them, a 13-year-old girl, said she heard the father "screaming and raging upstairs" as he fired the gun. "She was basically convinced that they were not going to get out of there alive," the complaint said.

Zachary hid elsewhere in the basement because he couldn't fit in the closet. His father came downstairs, firing more shots and threatening to kill him. One shot pierced the closet and nearly hit one of the friends.

When Daniel Christenson went upstairs, yelling for Zachary to follow him, Zachary broke a window in a basement bedroom. He and his friends escaped uninjured, but Daniel Christenson refused to leave the house.

Between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m., police called the house phone and Christenson's cell phone about 70 times, but he didn't respond. Police fired pepper spray into the house and at one point saw Christenson at a window, coughing.

Soon after, he came outside where he fired shots at Dean Fayerweather and Kristopher Stewart, both St. Croix County Sheriff's officers. Fayerweather fired back twice.

Christenson fell when Eric Johnson, a St. Croix County sheriff's deputy, shot him once at the front door of the house, the complaint said.

In addition to the three attempted homicide charges, Christensen also was charged with four counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. The criminal complaint lists the Minneapolis suburb of Lakeville as his current address.