High Speed Chase in Missoula Ends in Capture of Active Shooter

UPDATE---9:00 p.m. Friday, April 19  Peter Christian reporting.

Missoula Police Sergeant Bob Campbell is the lead investigator on the incident that occurred Friday evening, and provided the following narrative:

“We had a male who was in some sort of emotional crisis, but upon contact, we found him operating a motor vehicle in an erratic and reckless fashion,” Campbell began. “We attempted to make a traffic stop on the vehicle which was a Dodge pickup truck. He failed to yield to emergency traffic and we ended up in a pursuit down Reserve Street southbound.”

Campbell said the chase ended just off Brooks near Southgate Mall.

“We ended up just east of Southgate Mall in the area of Denny’s Restaurant and New Bridge Pizza where he crashed,” he said. “When all was said and done I ended up arresting this individual on one count of reckless eluding, a misdemeanor and three counts of felony criminal endangerment for placing traffic in danger along with pedestrians as well.”

Asked if the suspect was armed, Campbell said he was not armed upon arrest.

“Negative,” he said. “There was no indication of the use of a firearm, other than the possibility that he may have been in possession of a firearm at some point in time prior to our contacting him, but at no point in our interaction with him did he involve the use of a handgun.”

Campbell said two other vehicles were involved in minor crashes from the pursuit and those are being investigated separately. They were both non-injury accidents with no one taken to the hospital.

Campbell said the suspect, who has not yet been identified, was taken to Missoula Community Medical Center for treatment of what appeared to be minor injuries from crashing his pickup truck. He said the suspect will be booked into the Missoula County Jail after he is released from the hospital.

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A witness has reported a high speed chase and crash around 6:30 p.m. this evening near the Southgate Mall on Brooks. He explained that he was enjoying a quiet date night with his husband at the new The Bridge restaurant when an employee there announced they were going on lock down due to a possible active shooter.