Troy man accused of assaulting retired cop in road rage incident

A Troy man is accused of assaulting a retired police officer during an alleged road-rage incident last month on U.S. 2.

Michael B. O’Toole, 67, appeared with his attorney Michael Klinkhammer and pleaded not guilty to one felony count of assault with a weapon on Monday in Lincoln County District Court.

O’Toole, who is free after posting $25,000 bail, has another court appearance on Oct. 30.

According to charging documents, County Sheriff’s Deputy Luke Hauke was called on the afternoon of July 14 to the construction zone pullout where workers were doing rock scaling work on the cliffs near Kootenai River Falls.

An eyewitness to the alleged incident said a man, later identified as O’Toole, had pointed a gun at another man, a retired officer from Spokane, Washington.

According to Hauke’s supplemental narrative, he spoke to O’Toole who said the incident began, “prior to coming into Troy.” O’Toole also said the other man struck him first and believed he had been drinking.

Hauke then spoke with a man who called 911 to report the incident. The witness said he was driving west on U.S. 2 when he saw what was happening and turned around to come to the scene. The witness said he looked in his rearview mirror and saw O’Toole, “getting in the man’s face.” He couldn’t tell if O’Toole had a gun, but his wife said he did.

She told Deputy Hauke that O’Toole pointed a gun at the alleged victim’s head. She also said by the time she and her husband got back to the scene, three other men, “had contained” (O’Toole).

Deputy Hauke then spoke to the alleged victim’s wife. She said the incident started in the 70 mph zone west of Troy as she and her husband drove toward Troy. She said O’Toole was driving ahead of her after pulling onto the highway. She said he was driving 63 so, “I backed off and I stayed at his speed, but I kept checking to see if I could get around him to pass him to do 70.”

The woman continued, saying she slowed down as they came into Troy. She said O’Toole stopped dead in the road, “To the point where cars were coming behind us.”

“I laid on my horn and he opened his window and started shouting, and I backed off, slowed down to 45, did the 35, did the 25 through town,” the woman said. She also said when they drove through Troy, O’Toole pointed at each of the speed limit signs.

According to the court document, when the drivers came to the construction zone, the woman said she stopped at least 40 feet behind O’Toole. She said O’Toole was pulled slightly off the road into the pullout, but she had remained in the lane of traffic.

“All of a sudden, he (O’Toole) was getting out of his car,” she said. She also said O’Toole headed to the passenger side of her vehicle and her husband got out of the vehicle and told him, “Don’t you approach my wife.”

She said the two men scuffled and ended up on the ground. She also told the deputy that O’Toole lifted his shirt up. She said that three men came running up and subdued O’Toole. She also said she didn’t notice the gun until seeing it on the ground and one of the trio picked it up.

Deputy Hauke then spoke to the alleged victim, a retired Spokane police officer. The man said O’Toole had tried to gouge his eyes out, “when we were on the ground.”

He said he didn’t need an ambulance, but his spinal injury causes him, “poor balance and little to no feeling” in his hands and feet and he takes a lot of medications.

When they arrived at the work zone, the man said O’Toole got out of his car and he got out of his. He said they argued before the defendant shoved him, backed up and pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at the man from a few feet away.

The man said he told O’Toole to get away, but the defendant allegedly chambered a round and stuck the gun in his face.

“Then, he (O’Toole) put it back in his pocket and said, ‘Let’s just go, and he squared up with me and started to throw punches. He didn’t hit me with any, but I hit him a good one, then he got in close and that’s when I took him to the ground. Out of nowhere, these big Montana boys come out and pinned him down and got the gun away and that was pretty much it.”

Deputy Hauke asked the alleged victim how he felt having a gun stuck in his face.

“I’m retired law enforcement myself out of Spokane, I was 30 years on the police department. That’s the third time I’ve had a gun stuck in my face and it’s pretty unsettling.”

Hauke then went to O’Toole because he said he was having a heart attack. The officer reported calling dispatch to send an ambulance. Hauke said he didn’t see any obvious signs of the man having a heart attack and then they spoke about the incident.

“Michael (O’Toole) asked if he was under arrest and I told him he was not. I turned the A/C up in the rear compartment of my patrol vehicle. Michael seemed happy to get inside my patrol vehicle and thanked me,” Hauke wrote in his report. “I asked him how he knew he was having a heart attack and he said he wasn’t and he didn’t want to stand in the sun.”

According to Hauke’s narrative, O’Toole said the other man had been drinking, put his hands on him first and then he pulled his gun.

Deputy Hauke then spoke to the three men who assisted the alleged victim at the scene.

The driver of the pickup truck said they thought the men were buddies before they reported seeing O’Toole holding a gun. The driver of the truck said O’Toole dropped the gun during the scuffle and they pushed and kicked it away. They reported grabbing O’Toole’s arms and hands, got him up and sat him in the grass.”

O’Toole was checked by emergency medical technicians at the scene and refused treatment. He received approval to drive himself to Cabinet Peaks Medical Center in Libby. After O’Toole was declared OK by hospital staff, Hauke later spoke to O’Toole, who maintained the alleged victim put his hands on the defendant first and was the reason he drew his gun.

Deputy Hauke seized the gun, a .22 caliber Jimenez Arms with a magazine and six rounds of ammo. He later spoke to the alleged victim, who told him he was told my medical staff at the hospital in Kalispell that he had two rib fractures. He said he wasn’t sure if the injuries occurred when O’Toole allegedly hit him or when he took the defendant to the ground.

A conviction for assault with a weapon may result in a maximum sentence of 20 years in the Montana State Prison.