Former US soldier is suspected in Montana bar shooting that killed 4, prompting search
On Friday, a shooting in a Montana bar left four people dead, and police officers were looking for a suspect described by his niece as a former American soldier who had a hard time getting help for mental health problems.
The police searched a mountainous area west of the small town of Anaconda for the 45 -year -old suspect, Michael Paul Brown. He lived next to the 10:30 am site firing at the OWL bar, according to the public archives and the owner of the bar, David Gwerder.
The bartender and three customers were killed, said Gwerder, who was not there at the time. He thought that the four victims were the only ones present during the shooting and knew no previous conflict between them and Brown.
“He knew everyone who was in this bar. I guarantee it,” said Gwerder. “He had no dispute with any of them. I think he just broke.”
Brown’s house was eliminated by a Swat team and was last seen in the Stump Town region, just west of Anaconda, the authorities said.
More than a dozen local and state police officers converged in this area, the lockable for no one has been allowed to enter or get out. A helicopter also flew over a neighboring mountainside while police officers were traveling among the trees, said Randy Clark, a retired police officer who lives there.
Brown would have been armed, the Montana Highway Patrol said in a statement.
Brown served in the American army as an armor equipping from 2001 to 2005 and deployed in Iraq from early 2004 to March 2005, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Ruth Castro, army spokesperson. Brown was in the Montana National Guard from 2006 to March 2009, Castro said. He left military service in the rank of sergeant.
Her niece, Clare Boyle, told the AP Friday that his uncle has been mentally ill for years and that she and other family members have tried to ask for help several times.
“It is not only a drunk / high man who is unleashed,” she wrote in a Facebook message. “He is a sick man who does not know who he is sometimes and often does not know where or when he is either.”
While reports on the shooting spread in the city, business owners have locked their doors and sheltered inside with customers.
Anaconda is around 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Missoula in a valley hemmed by mountains. A city of around 9,000 inhabitants, it was founded by copper barons that took advantage of the neighboring mines in the late 1800s. A foundry stack that was no longer on the valley. The Montana criminal investigation division is investigating the shooting.
The owner of the Firefly Café in Anaconda said that she had locked her business around 11 a.m. Friday after being alerted from the shooting with a friend.
“We are Montana, so firearms are not new to us,” said the owner of the Barbie Café Nelson. “So that our city is locked up, everyone is fairly shaken.”
