A Hungry Horse man faces two felonies after an Oct. 17 shooting incident led to a standoff with Flathead County sheriff deputies and the SWAT Team.
Prosecutors are charging Benjamin Curtis Davis, 34, with assault with a weapon and criminal endangerment. If found guilty of the felonies, Davis could be sentenced up to 30 years in prison and fined $100,000.
According to court documents, a Hungry Horse man said Davis had walked in front of his house located on First Street SW with dogs several times earlier on Oct. 17. Davis’ loose dogs were agitating the other man’s chained dogs, he reported, and he confronted Davis and asked him to take his dogs out of the area.
The man reported that Davis then pulled a semi-automatic handgun and pointed it at him from about 10 feet away and allegedly said, “You are going to die.”
Davis pulled the trigger while the other man scrambled to back away from him, “fearing for his life,” prosecutors said. Davis emptied the gun’s magazine in the shooting, prosecutors said, and then proceeded to reload and fire a few more shots into the air.
A different man on the house’s porch also witnessed the shooting, and told investigators he shouted, “No! No! No!” The man Davis initially aimed at said he knew bullets were flying past him and he believed he would have been hit if he hadn’t been retreating.
Later, sheriff deputies found nine spent .40-caliber casings from where the man said Davis took aim at him.
There were several other witnesses who reported the shooting, including two men on Fourth Avenue South and Canyon Road who said they heard the shots and then heard bullets going past them. Law enforcement dispatched to the call at about 4:50 p.m.
After the shooting, Davis walked to a different house on First Street SW and talked to another witness there. He went into the house, and the man he was talking to exited, according to court documents. The man was detained by deputies and signed a search waiver for the deputies to try and find Davis inside the house.
Deputies secured the perimeter, and the SWAT Team responded to the incident as well. Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry reported that several attempts to talk Davis out of the house were unsuccessful, and the tactical team deployed tear gas.
Davis finally emerged at about 9 p.m., Curry said, and was arrested without incident. According to the charging documents, Davis “was extremely intoxicated when arrested.”
Investigators obtained a search warrant for the house, and it yielded a .40-caliber Smith and Wesson semi-automatic handgun with one round in the chamber and 13 rounds in the attached magazine.
Davis’ arraignment, during which he will enter pleas to the charges against him, is scheduled for Nov. 8.