Missoula Crime Report: 2022 Numbers are Down, But Violence is Up

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office charged 11 new criminal complaints this week, which is one more than last week and still below the weekly average. According to County Attorney Kirsten Pabst, this year’s crime numbers are down compared to last year’s, but there are still some concerns.

“To date, we have filed 201 criminal complaints, which is down significantly from the 234 that we had filed at this time last year,” Pabst said. “The sad difference though is that 67 of our 201 this year fall into the violent crimes category. 62 of the 234 fell into the violent crime category last year. We are charging less crimes, but they tend to be more crimes against people.”

Pabst went on to describe the types of cases that occurred this week specifically.

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“We charged a strangulation, an assault, and a PFMA that included criminal destruction or tampering with a communication device,” Pabst said. “That is taking the phone away or destroying the phone when someone is trying to call 911. In one of those cases, the defendant was allegedly abusing his girlfriend. Then he assaulted her child when the child tried to help mom.”

For the second consecutive week, Pabst said her office charged a sexual abuse of children case.

“The defendant allegedly talked online with a fictitious 13-year-old female, travelled to Missoula to meet said female, and engage in sexual relations,” Pabst said. “In the endangerment category, we only had one felony DUI, which is a fourth or subsequent offense. We charged three property crimes and two were robberies. In that case, the two co-defendants allegedly stole a car from outside a gas station and then struck the victim with the vehicle as the victim was attempting to stop them from driving away.”

Finally, Pabst said they charged three new felony drug cases that involved marijuana, mushrooms, meth, cocaine, fentanyl, LSD, pills, cash, and a loaded gun. You can listen to Pabst full report below: