Cops and Courts

After reporting this story about a homeless man who was shot in the cheek with a blowgun dart fired from a passing Lexus early Monday morning, I received word from a local blogger who recalled a similar incident 10 years ago, or so she remembered.

Here’s the August 1995 article written by former Missoulian reporter Mick Holien that a cursory search of our morgue (archive system) turned up:

Missoula city police are investigating the report of a 13-year-old girl who was hit in the outer lower arm with a blow dart shot from a passing vehicle on South Avenue near Community Medical Center Monday night.

The youngster was riding bikes with four girls west on South Avenue across from the hospital’s emergency exit lane about 7:40 p.m. when two males in the back seat of a vehicle shot a five-inch dart from a three- to four-foot-long black pipe or tube, striking the victim in the arm, her mother said.

The reddish-orange or rusty-orange vehicle with a light, possibly white or faded vinyl roof, proceeded west on South Avenue after the incident.

“She felt something in her arm and she thought she had been stung by a bee or hit with a rock from the car,” said the victim’s mother, who requested anonymity. “She looks down and sees this needle in her arm and that’s what she thought it was, was a needle.”

The victim shook her arm until the dart fell out, then stopped at a nearby house, where a nurse told her to go across the street to the emergency room.

Although her fingers were initially numbed, the girl since has regained full use of her arm.

A yellow rubber end and the five-inch dart were found on the side of the road and turned over to Missoula police, the victim’s mother said.

“It looks like a thin piece of wire where you pound the end flat and then you file it to make a point,” the woman said.

There you have it. I’ll update this post if I find any similar incidents. In the meantime, keep an eye out for poison-tipped arrows.

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