KALISPELL, Mont. – A man is facing charges for allegedly shooting another person on Christmas Eve in what Flathead County deputies called “a type of road rage incident.”
Deputies were first alerted of the shooting at 2:16 p.m. on Christmas Eve, when they received a call from a man who said he had just been shot in the head.
The caller said he was shot by someone driving a blue Mercedes, which then pulled into a nearby driveway.
While deputies were driving to the location of the caller, they received another call at 2:22 p.m. from the same area. The second caller said he had just shot at a man in a black truck because he worried the other man was going to start shooting at him.
The second caller told deputies his address on Columbia Falls Stage and said he would wait for them there.
Deputies arrived at the location of the first caller and found him in the driver's seat with a bullet wound on the right side of his head. Blood was draining from the wound and the driver said he could not hear out of his right ear.
The front window of the car was shattered and deputies saw bullet holes in the outside mirror, the passenger front headrest, the topper and ten more in the back passenger door and window.
The driver’s eight-year-old child was in the back seat. The child was crying and upset when deputies arrived at the scene, but was not injured.
The driver told deputies the shooting happened after the suspected shooter drove his car and passed him and one other car, which was mid-turn.
The driver said he stopped to ask the eventual-shooter “what his issue was” when the suspected shooter took out a pistol and started shooting the driver’s car.
Other neighbors on Columbia Falls Stage, where the shooting happened, said they heard gun shots at the time of the shooting.
Deputies drove to the address of the second caller, who was the shooting suspect, and found his waiting at the end of his driveway with his hands up.
They said he "immediately" started making statements including “I’m not a threat, I was scared for my life, I didn’t know what the guy was gonna do.”
Deputies said they told the suspect they did not want details and just wanted to detain him until they could figure things out.
Deputies detained the suspect, read him his rights and confirmed his identity before taking him to the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office for an interview.
Paperwork filed on December 26, 2025 shows the suspect was charged with attempted deliberate homicide and criminal endangerment.
Originally published on montanarightnow.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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