Missoula County HIDTA Team Brings Down Major Drug Operation
UPDATE---6:00 a.m. Monday, August 12
60 year-old Darrell Davis was arrested on Saturday evening and placed in the Missoula County Jail on $200,000 bond.
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UPDATE---3:00 p.m. Friday, August 9 Missoula County Justice Court.
50 year-old Victoria Davis appeared in Missoula Justice Court of Friday and was charged with multiple felonies, including Criminal Possession of Dangerous Drugs with Intent to Distribute and 12 separate counts of Unlawful use or possession of property subject to criminal forfeiture.
Deputy Missoula County Attorney James McCubbin asked Judge Landee Holloway for bail of $250,000 due to the serious nature of the charges and the danger to the community.
The home where the arrest occurred is in the Mullan Trail neighborhood, where kids were riding bikes and couples were out walking on Tuesday evening when the HIDTA Task Force conducted the raid.
McCubbin said a second suspect, Darrell Davis, is still at large. He is described as a white male in his mid to late 50's with short cropped hair and he is clean shaven. Anyone with information as to his whereabouts is asked to call 9-1-1.
Judge Holloway set bail for Victoria Davis at $200,000 and remanded her back to the Missoula County Jail. She was represented in justice court by Missoula attorney Bryan Tipp.
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Missoula County Attorney Kirsten Pabst revealed a major drug bust that occurred in the past week while sharing the crime report on KGVO’s Friday morning Talk Back program.
“Our HIDTA team brought down a pretty significant drug operation this week, under the direction of Detective Sean Manraksa,” said Pabst. “In this case over two pounds of methamphetamine were seized, as well as heroin and some pills. There was also a significant amount of property that we will be filing for forfeiture, which includes the house, 52 weapons that were seized with thousands of rounds of ammo, $54,000 in cash and at least another $10,000 worth of silver.”
Pabst said the investigation took a great deal of time before the actual bust occurred this week.
“Sometimes those investigations take place over the course of months and years,” she said. :”One of the great things we’ve been able to accomplish through our Project Safe Neighborhoods group is to eliminate some of our redundancies and get all of our law enforcement players at the table together working on these cases.”
Speaking of the sheer number of agencies involved in such an investigation, Pabst said ‘it takes a village’.
Pabst said there were five new felony drug cases in addition to the HIDTA raid.
“There were also five violent crimes charged,” she said. “There was one partner or family member assault involving a strangulation and destruction of a communications device. There were two incidents at the Missoula County Detention Facility that were charged as felonies. One was an attack on a jailer while another was a pretty serious attack on another inmate. There was a robbery case and threats made by a suspect against the arresting officer and his family that were specific enough to concern the deputy that he knew his family and their movements.”
Pabst wrapped up the report with an incident at the Maclay Bridge.
“The individual was told not to jump off the Maclay Bridge, being illegal and dangerous to do so,” she said. “However, he did so in the presence of law enforcement and then lied about it to authorities.”
In all there were 17 new felonies charged by the Missoula County Attorney’s office.