Missoula Crime Report: ‘Extremely High’ Amount of Violent Crimes

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 16 new felony complaints this week, which is one more than last week and right around the weekly average. According to County Attorney Matt Jennings, there were 10 violent crimes against persons. 

“That is extremely high and higher than we've seen in quite a while,” Jennings said. “Unfortunately, this continues the trend we've seen over the last couple of months with several of these offenses being involved with young people, some of whom are adults, some of whom are still juveniles, that are involved in gang activity and the extortion of money from other individuals and some violence that accompanies that.” 

Jennings said this is a real thing in our community and it is causing a small spike in crime.  

“We had one endangerment crime, one property crime, and four drug crimes,” Jennings said. “Over the weekend, we actually had nine DUI arrests that came through our office. Now, these only include DUI's that were either initiated outside of the city limits or by Montana Highway Patrol.” 

Jennings said drinking and driving is still prevalent in Montana despite the progress that has been made to remove that bad reputation.  

“There are some bills going through the legislature right now that would give us some more effective tools in combating drinking and driving,” Jennings said. “We hope that the legislature picks those up so that we can continue to be able to work on this by protecting the public and trying to rehabilitate people that are abusing some of those substances and getting behind the wheel.” 

READ MORE: Missoula News - Crime Reports

Jennings also mentioned that those nine cases from last weekend aren't even included in his 16 felonies this week.  

“Most of those, I think all but one or two, were misdemeanors and I don't usually tally those up because many of those end up going through justice court and pleading out without us really having to do a lot,” Jennings said. 

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: