Missoula Crime Report: 11 Very Intoxicated Individuals This Week

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 15 new felony complaints this week, which is two less than last week and right around the weekly average. According to County Attorney Matt Jennings, 11 of those involved very intoxicated individuals who were on drugs or alcohol.

“Most of the crime that we see is related to substance abuse,” Jennings said. “That is one of the reasons we try and target that with the criminal justice system. There may be a crime, and we focus on punitive and accountability elements of that, but the criminal justice system can also be a really powerful tool to try and address people's addiction issues. We've got all types of resources to make sure that we're balancing that level of accountability but also with some rehabilitation. We're dealing with this crime, but we're also trying to prevent the next crime down the road that we know is usually related to somebody's addiction.”

In addition, Jennings said there were five violent offenses this week.

“Three of those were family violence,” Jennings said. “Domestic violence is a huge focus for our office. Two of them were non-family violence or robbery cases. We had one endangerment crime which involved driving behavior. We only had one property crime this week. We had six specific drug crimes involving those hard drugs, usually, methamphetamine or fentanyl are the two drugs that we're seeing mostly in the community right now. Then there were two administrative crimes which included bail jumping and some other issues of not being compliant with court conditions.”

Jennings said there were a lot of DUI cases this week as well.

“I just wanted to remind the listeners that we've got Independence Day coming up next week,” Jennings said. “Folks should cut back, they should relax, and they should be with their friends. If they want to party, they should. But they should talk to their friends and family before they do it and make sure they have a plan to be safe. Get a sober driver. Don't get behind that wheel. Make sure you're watching out for things like fire danger and other people being safe. But that balance can absolutely be achieved by having all the fun in the world and making sure that nobody else gets hurt when you do it. But it usually takes a plan and talking it through before it happens.”

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: