Violence and Meth Dominate Missoula Crime Once Again

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 16 new criminal complaints this week. Four of those cases were crimes that involved violence. County Attorney Kirsten Pabst explains.

“One of those was a fairly serious family violence crime,” Pabst said. “The defendant was charged with intimidation, partner or family member assault, theft, and deceptive practices. He allegedly assaulted the victim, threatened her son if she didn’t lie, and then he used her debit card. We charged a robbery case in which the defendant punched a guy and then took his backpack. There were two sexual intercourse without consent cases that we filed.”

According to Pabst, there were six property crimes and three of those were theft cases. They also charged one burglary case.

“In that case, the defendant got on top of the roof of the mall, broke a couple of sky lights, entered, and set off an alarm in the Now Care,” Pabst said. “The defendant was seen jumping off of the roof and fleeing. Later that day, he was arrested for shoplifting at Bob Wards and Champs. At the time of the arrest, the defendant’s shoes matched the shoe print from the roof. There was also blood on the sky light, which was tested and implicated the defendant.”

In addition, Pabst says they charged five new felony drug cases and all of them involved methamphetamine.

“One was possession with intent to distribute,” Pabst said. “The defendant was reported to have been dealing from his hotel room. Another defendant was charged with two counts of dangerous drugs for having methamphetamine and pills that were in an unmarked container. The defendant was dishonest about his name so an obstructing count was added. There was an additional methamphetamine plus forgery count.”

Finally, they charged one indecent exposure and disorderly conduct case.