Police shoot man in Eureka fracas

By BRENT SHRUM Western News Reporter

A 55-year-old Eureka man was shot and wounded by a police officer Sunday evening after storming the police station with a shotgun in an attempt to retrieve his daughter from custody.

Mark Nelson was in critical but stable condition at Kalispell Regional Medical Center Monday afternoon with a lacerated liver and a broken femur after being shot three times by Eureka police officer Ian Jeffcock, said Lincoln County Attorney Bernie Cassidy. Nelson fired his shotgun at Jeffcock twice — including the round that started the exchange of fire — but neither shot struck the officer, Cassidy said.

According to Cassidy, the incident began with a disturbance at the VFW bar in Eureka in which Nelson, his 24-year-old daughter Jennifer Nelson, and her 25-year-old boyfriend Christopher Showen were arrested. Jennifer Nelson was charged with several felony and misdemeanor offenses including assault on a peace officer, assault with bodily fluids, resisting arrest and intimidation and after being taken into custody made threats to harm herself and others, Cassidy said. Mark Nelson and Showen were cited for disorderly conduct and released while arrangements were being made to obtain a mental evaluation for Jennifer Nelson.

About 20 minutes after the two men were released, Nelson — armed with a shotgun — returned to the station through a side door that had been opened for an ambulance crew preparing to transport his daughter and demanded her release, Cassidy said. Jeffcock and Deputy Wes Hodges of the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office were in the next room. Hodges went outside to go around the building and get behind Nelson while Jeffcock went to the doorway between the two rooms.

Jeffcock could see Nelson in a mirror, and Nelson apparently saw Jeffcock as well and fired a round believed to have been loaded with buckshot, striking the door jamb, Cassidy said. Jeffcock fired five rounds from his handgun, striking Nelson once in the torso and twice in the thigh, Cassidy said. Nelson fired another round — apparently a slug — which also missed Jeffcock.

Showen, who was subsequently charged with assault in connection with the earlier incident, was found outside the police station in Nelson's car and was taken into custody without incident, Cassidy said. Charges against Nelson are pending, he said.

The investigation into the shooting is being led by the state Justice Department's Division of Criminal Investigation.