Cops and Courts

Tristan Scott joined the Missoulian in 2005 and covers the daily operations of area law enforcement agencies, the Missoula County court system, and the U.S. District Courts in Montana. In journalism parlance, he covers cops and courts.

By trolling his beat for information, Tristan roots up all manner of spicy news tidbits. Most of these stories are told in the pages of the daily newspaper, but other choice morsels are bandied about in the newsroom, over coffee with sources or at the poker table after hours. Most often, these stories are relegated to the legions of pocket-sized notebooks amassing beneath Tristan’s desk; never achieving their full potential, they wither into illegible scrawl and die.

Enter copsandcourts.com, a blog with ample space to discuss the full-length stories that appear in the Missoulian and nurture the news bits and curios that Tristan comes across every day. He’s written about complicated legal issues like those surrounding W.R. Grace’s sprawling environmental crimes case, while also putting a human face on the victims and perpetrators of heinous offenses that happen on Missoula’s downtown streets. He wrote about a well-known undertaker who shot himself after detectives collected DNA samples for a decades-old murder investigation, and reported an investigative series that helped explain why so many of our community members are dying from prescription painkillers.

Raised in Minnesota, Tristan moved to Missoula in 2003 to attend the University of Montana School of Journalism. When he’s not snooping around the courthouse for stories or mining his sources for news tips, he enjoys fly fishing, backpacking, reading, running and snowboarding.

Tristan lives in the lower Rattlesnake with his two cats, Dashiell and Lillian.