Former U.S. soldier suspected in Montana bar shooting that killed 4, prompting manhunt

Article content

A shooting at a Montana bar left four people dead Friday, prompting a lockdown in a neighbourhood several miles away as authorities searched for the suspect in a wooded, mountainous area.

The shooting happened around 10:30 a.m. at The Owl Bar in Anaconda, according to the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, which is leading the investigation. The agency confirmed four people were pronounced dead at the scene.

The suspect, identified as 45-year-old military veteran Michael Paul Brown, lived next door, according to public records and bar owner David Gwerder.

The bartender and three patrons were killed, said Gwerder, who was not there at the time. He believed the four victims were the only ones present during the shooting, and was not aware of any prior conflicts between them and Brown.

“He knew everybody that was in that bar. I guarantee you that,” Gwerder said. “He didn’t have any running dispute with any of them. I just think he snapped.”

Brown’s home was cleared by a SWAT team and he was last seen in the Stump Town area, just west of Anaconda, authorities said.

More than a dozen officers from local and state police converged on that area, locking it down so no one was allowed in or out. A helicopter also hovered over a nearby mountainside as officers moved among the trees, said Randy Clark, a retired police officer who lives there.

Brown was believed to be armed, the Montana Highway Patrol said in a statement.

Brown served in the U.S. Army as an armour crewman from 2001 to 2005 and deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005, according to Lt. Col. Ruth Castro, an 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.

As reports of the shooting spread through town, business owners locked their doors and sheltered inside with customers. At Caterpillars to Butterflies Childcare, a nursery a few blocks from the shooting scene, owner Sage Huot said she’d kept the children inside all day after someone called to let her know about the violence.

“We’re constantly doing practice drills, fire drills and active shooter drills, so we locked down the facility, locked the doors, and we have a quiet spot where we play activities away from all of our windows and doors,” Huot said.

Anaconda is about 75 miles (120 kilometres) southeast of Missoula in a valley hemmed in by mountains. A town of about 9,000 people, it was founded by copper barons who profited off nearby mines in the late 1800s. A smelter stack that’s no longer operational looms over the valley.

The owner of the Firefly Cafe in Anaconda said she locked up her business at about 11 a.m. Friday after getting alerted to the shooting by a friend.

“We are Montana, so guns are not new to us,” cafe owner Barbie Nelson said. “For our town to be locked down, everybody’s pretty rattled.”

— Brown reported from Billings, Montana, and Slevin from Denver. AP writer Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed to this report.