A Whitefish man with a criminal history is in the Flathead County jail after a road rage incident involving a firearm on Saturday.

Christopher Robert Showen, 34, was in jail under an initial charge of assault with a weapon.

At about 7:15 p.m. Saturday, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office got a report of shots being fired on Trumble Creek Road. The victim and his girlfriend stated they were riding their motorcycle when they were passed by a reckless driver in the Creston area, according to a press release from the sheriff. 

The occupants of the vehicle reportedly made obscene gestures at the people on the motorcycle, who then followed the vehicle in an attempt to get a license number. They said the vehicle continued to be driven recklessly.

As the vehicle reached Trumble Creek Road near the intersection of Hodgson Road, a male passenger allegedly leaned out of the car and began firing a handgun at the motorcycle, the press release states. No one was hit by the gunfire.

The man and woman on the motorcycle stopped and called 911, and soon after the vehicle was located at a residence in the Whitefish area. Showen was taken into custody, and the case remains under investigation.

Showen’s ex-wife, Jennifer Showen, contacted the Inter Lake Monday and had a different version of what transpired.

She said she and Christopher first had contact with the people on the motorcycle on Montana 35 just north of Bigfork. She said she attempted to pass the motorcycle, but the driver accelerated in a manner intended to prevent her from passing. 

“The woman on the back flipped us off,” she said, adding that she and Christopher returned the gesture.

Jennifer Showen eventually got ahead of the motorcycle, but it caught up to them near the intersection of Montana 35 and Montana 206 and continued to follow them into Evergreen and north onto U.S. 2.

“At this point I was getting freaked out,” she said, and if there was any reckless driving on her part, it was because she was scared and attempting to elude the motorcycle.

Once on Trumble Creek Road, she said she was able to stop, and no shots were fired from the vehicle while it was moving.

“Three shots were fired into the air,” and not toward the motorcycle, she said. “I’m not going to say who fired the gun.”

About 10 minutes after she arrived at a relative’s home in the Whitefish area, law enforcement showed up. Both she and Christopher were detained and the vehicle was impounded with her belongings and medication.

She said she learned afterwards that the man on the motorcycle was a former law enforcement officer. Because of that, Jennifer Showen contends, she has been “stonewalled” from pressing any charges against him.

Christopher Showen was acquitted of murder in 1999 in Flathead County. He was accused of shooting 19-year-old Carl C.J. Storkson, a childhood friend, and then burning Storkson’s car and burying his body.

In May of 2004, Showen was arrested in Palmer, Alaska, for allegedly firing two shots from a handgun into the air, and then five shots toward people at a bonfire from a moving vehicle. Charges in that case were reduced to misdemeanor reckless endangerment, and he was sentenced to a year in jail.