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.

• Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.