Missoula Crime Report: Heat Wave Leads to Crime Wave

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 18 new felony complaints this week, which is six less than last week but still above the weekly average. According to County Attorney Matt Jennings, this heat wave has also brought on a crime wave. 

“The past three or four weeks have been the busiest that we've had in 2024 and almost set some records that we've ever seen in the number of cases that have been charged, but as that storm hit this week and things cooled down, so did some of our criminal numbers,” Jennings said. “That's a really nice reprieve that we saw which is also a break to first responders, law enforcement, and folks that are out trying to get their lives back together with power out and disruption of lives.” 

Jennings said there were seven violent crimes this week which is closer to the normal amount. 

“Four of those were family violence or domestic violence,” Jennings said. “This is what I've been pondering. A little bit of hot weather and no AC has people getting a little agitated. Tempers flare and we've seen a lot of domestic violence in the last month or so. We had two non-family violence cases, robbery cases, and we had one sexual assault case that was charged this week. We had two endangerment crimes and those both involved high-speed chases between Missoula and Lolo.” 

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In addition, there were three property crimes and six drug crimes. 

“We try and make sure that we are addressing drug crimes appropriately and giving people an opportunity to get treatment and help with their underlying substance use issues,” Jennings said. “But when they start getting into things like drug dealing or exposing children to drugs, we really view that as a punitive measure in addition to the rehabilitation. We're always trying to balance a right-sized approach to some of those drug crimes and make sure that we're holding people accountable for true criminal actions. When it's more substance use or addiction-related, then we're trying to get them help for the rehabilitation.” 

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: