County Attorney Address Crime Spike at the Missoula Shelter

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 20 new felony complaints this week, which is seven more than last week and higher than the weekly average. According to County Attorney Matt Jennings, there were eight crimes of violence.

“Only two of those were family violence, which is kind of interesting,” Jennings said. “Usually, about half of our offenses are domestic violence of some sort. Three of those were non-family violence, and then three were sex assault cases. Unfortunately, this week, all of those sex assault cases involved children. In fact, we actually have a jury trial going on right now of an alleged rape against a teenager, and we take those so seriously.”

Jennings said they’ve made leaps and bounds in how we've handled reports of sexual violence, especially with young people, in the last decade. They have a whole team that's dedicated to making sure that they get justice for those victims and the community.

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“We had six property crimes, which is a little bit of an upswing over recent weeks,” Jennings said. “Then we had four drug crimes, but those were crimes where it was only drugs. Frankly, almost all of our offenses are related to drugs and alcohol. If we didn't have methamphetamine in this community and if there wasn’t alcohol in relationships, we'd probably see about 75% of our crimes drop off our board.”

There has been an increase recently in the number of violent crimes occurring at the Poverello Center in Missoula. Jennings said those are delicate issues.

“Some people hear what I'm about to say, and they think that we're targeting folks that are vulnerable and are unhoused,” Jennings said. “But I actually look at my career as being focused mostly on serving people who are indigent and poor. A vast majority of the victims that we see come through our office are people of color, they are economically unstable, or they're homeless. I would say probably half of the felony jury trials I've ever had in my life have victims who are homeless. I consider my professional career to be dedicated to the most vulnerable people in our community.”

Jennings believes that around 95% of the people who are unhoused in our community are well-intentioned but are struggling with issues like brain injuries, drug or alcohol abuse, and trauma. He said there's a small subset of unhoused people in this community that are very predatory.

“They make the conditions on the streets extremely unsafe for those other unhoused people,” Jennings said. “We really try and sift through what's going on, but there are some folks that basically hang around the Poverello Center that are victimizing the rest of the folks that are trying to get back on their feet, and that really ticks me off. We prioritize those cases because we actually see some real miracles come out of that facility of people that need a little bit of help and stabilization, and years later they're doing well, but they're not going to do well if they end up getting hurt, or victimized, or have drugs pushed in their face.”

According to Jennings, we need to balance the compassion that we have for the unhoused while also recognizing that there are some people out there who are trying to victimize and hurt those who are vulnerable.

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