Missoula Crime: Attempted Kidnapping Thwarted by Quick Thinking

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 15 new felony complaints this week, which is four more than last week and right around the weekly average. County Attorney Matt Jennings has the official numbers.

“Five of those were violent crimes against other individuals and four were endangerment crimes,” Jennings said. “We had two property crimes, two drug crimes, and two administrative crimes. This week, those were mostly failure to register as a sexual or violent offender.”

Jennings added that Missoula had three very serious DUI-related accidents in the last week.

“Two of these were nearly head-on collisions and did actually cause collisions with other drivers,” Jennings said. “One that got some media coverage earlier in the week was an individual who drove off the side of the Orange St. Bridge and partially into the Clark Fork River. The allegations there that he was also intoxicated.”

According to Jennings, two of these occurred in broad daylight and both individuals were completely inebriated.

“I don’t know what we need to do as a society to stop some of this, but each of these individuals had other warning signs or things in their past indicating that they've been on the wrong track for quite a while,” Jennings said. “DUI's are actually really hard to prove if we have to go to trial because we can't talk about past DUI convictions. Sometimes we might be in a trial with somebody that's on their 10th DUI, but we can't actually ever mention that they've got one in the past. That's one of the things that jurors want to know, but some of our rules prohibit that type of discussion.”

Another case Jennings wanted to highlight this week was an attempted kidnapping.

“A woman was leaving work and allegedly a man followed her around town. She had really quick thinking, immediately called 911, made sure that she stayed around people, and actually drove directly to the police station. He was caught at the police station. There were some tools in his vehicle and other parts of the investigation that suggest that he truly did mean to go hands-on with her, and that is absolutely terrifying.”

Jennings said he wanted to give her a shout-out for her quick thinking, and law enforcement for their rapid response to make sure that didn't happen.

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office provides a weekly crime report every Friday morning at 9:00 on Talk Back. You can listen to Jennings’ full report below: