New Crime Report Reveals Troubling Trends In Missoula

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 22 new felony complaints this week, which is three more than last week and higher than the weekly average. County Attorney Matt Jennings said that is the most they have had in three months. 

“We saw a lot of endangerment crimes this week,” Jennings said. “These are things that can involve driving under the influence with kids in the car. We had one shooting incident where somebody was shooting outside of a person's home to try to intimidate them. These are all really disappointing things because they're so easily avoidable.” 

Jennings said there were seven violent offenses this week. 

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“We had six endangerment crimes, three property crimes, and five drug crimes,” Jennings said. “We haven't been seeing as many drug crimes coming in. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they don't happen, they're just not always the top priority when there are other person crimes or domestic violence. Speaking of domestic violence, of those seven violent crimes, five were family or partner violence and only two were non-family or partner member.” 

Jennings also wanted to highlight the fact that they saw an alarming number of cases where people used threatening and intimidating language. 

“They are threatening to kill people, whether it is law enforcement officers, domestic partners, government employees, medical staff, and whatnot,” Jennings said. “People can obviously express displeasure to the government and people they are dealing with in customer service, but the First Amendment does not encompass people's ability to threaten someone, to control them, or compel them to act in a certain way. It seems like we're getting a lot more of that, of people basically threatening to kill officers at the moment of an arrest or going into medical establishments and saying that.” 

READ MORE: Missoula News - Crime Reports

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office provides a weekly crime report every Friday morning at 9:00 on Talk Back.