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A Cops and Courts vacation

My undisclosed location looks a little like this. See you next week!

(Image: AdVillas.com)

In Billings, dog threatens mailman. Mailman sprays dog. Owner sprays mailman.

The Billings Gazette weaves a tangled tale (tail?) of attack and counter-attack today:

The scuffle occurred after the carrier had delivered mail to Hobby’s house on the 2500 block of Custer Avenue. The carrier sprayed the dog when it ran toward him, barking aggressively and with hair raised, and lunged.

Things apparently went [...]

Montana Crime Lab has the coolest nametags ever

Seriously.

It’s hard to feel like anything other than a weenie with your own “Hello, My Name Is …” tag when someone like Joe Pasternak is walking around with blood spatters on his tag.

Or Lynette Crego, with the tiny plastic pistol on hers.

Pasternak and Crego are forensic scientists, specializing in [...]

Montana lawmaker – Prisoners try HIV-tipped darts as murder weapons

Really? Really?

Paper blow darts tipped with HIV-infected saliva or blood can kill?

Well, no. Not really. Despite what Republican Rep. Janna Taylor, of Dayton in Lake County, said in a hearing on a bill to repeal the death penalty this week.

“There’s new ways to kill. You know, if a prisoner [...]

Flathead teen drops suit against victims after homicide conviction

A lawsuit that might have seemed the very definition of hubris – a young woman who crashed her car into another car, killing a pregnant woman and her son, sued the woman’s estate – is being dropped.

Not at all coincidentally, that same young woman, Justine Winters, was just convicted in Flathead County [...]

Cow thought to be Montana’s famed outlaw Molly B is a steer

Molly B is one of Montana’s most famous outlaws.

The feisty black cow was headed for the slaughterhouse a few years back when she went on the lam, dodging traffic in Great Falls and swimming the icy Missoula River to freedom.

Then, as Perry Backus of the Ravalli Republic reports, the story [...]

Computer through window nets felony charge in Missoula County

Really, who hasn’t wanted to throw a computer through a window? It brings to mind that great scene from “Office Space” where the Initech worker bees wreaked revenge upon the fax machine.

But the incident that ended up with a felony charge being filed against a Frenchtown man has nothing to do [...]

Missoula County marijuana initiative so much (ahem) smoke and mirrors?

The 2006 Missoula County voter initiative that makes low amounts of marijuana the lowest priority for law enforcement is just a suggestion.

Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg and members of law enforcement say that’s a problem because the guidelines are so fuzzy.

But with the exception of medicinal use, pot is still [...]

Montana man sentenced for punching mom on Valentine’s Day

Two words for this guy – no, not those two. Although they’d apply, too.

Flowers. Chocolate.

Alas, as the Associated Press reports, Conrad Joseph Old Horn Jr. never learned that the only acceptable behavior on Valentine’s Day involves those things.

Prosecutors say Old Horn was drunk on Feb. 14, when he [...]

Report – Montana Highway Patrol trooper changed name, lied about Iraq

It’s really scary when the folks who are supposed to keep us safe turn out to be lying on pretty much every level. Among many, many discrepancies, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper’s name wasn’t Steve Wisniewski (in Billings Gazette photo at right). And he hadn’t served in Iraq.

The Montana Highway Patrol [...]