Missoula Crime Report: Stealing Firearms From Vehicles

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Missoula County Attorney’s Office filed 20 new criminal complaints this week, which is eight more than last week and more than the weekly average. According to County Attorney Matt Jennings, five of those crimes involved some form of violence.

“Two were endangerment crimes,” Jennings said. “These usually involve drinking and driving and dangerous driving that puts other people at risk of death or serious bodily injury. We had six property crimes and we had seven drug crimes. Within our category of violent crimes, four were family violence or strangulation and one was non-family violence.”

Jennings added that charging six property crimes at the felony level is a little bit high.

“We have been seeing a lot of vehicle break-ins and some of these have started reaching felony amounts,” Jennings said. “One of the things that people are often looking for when they break into vehicles are firearms.”

Jennings mentioned that they’ve had a bunch of stolen firearms out of vehicles.

“I just really wanted to encourage the public to lock your car doors,” Jennings said. “Don't leave your guns in your car unless you absolutely have to and if you do, make sure that those are secure. The last thing that anybody wants is to have a firearm stolen and then be used for other criminal acts in the future. That is something that we're seeing a lot of.”

Jennings said there were some break-ins in Lolo and on the north side of Missoula.

“They may not be the most serious crimes and people don't always get hurt, but it leads to people feeling violated and that their home or the area around their home is not safe,” Jennings said. “We're doing what we can to combat that, but any help from the public in locking stuff up and getting security cameras, that can be really helpful too.”

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: