Missoula’s County Attorney’s Office Was Busier Than Usual This Week

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office is still dealing with the case where Montana Highway Patrol trooper Wade Palmer and three other people were allegedly shot by Jonathan Bertsch. Chief Deputy County Attorney Jason Marks says that case is keeping his office busy, but they filed a significant amount of new cases this past week as well.

“We filed 15 new cases this week, which is not the busiest we have been, but it is definitely an uptick from the last month or so,” Marks said. “Five of those involved methamphetamine. Another five, unfortunately, were domestic violence related cases. We had a variety of other stuff as well. We had a felony DUI, stolen car, that sort of thing.”

According to Marks, meth continues to have an impact on several crimes in Missoula. He says a lot of property crimes occur because people are stealing things so they can sell them for drugs.