Charge dismissed for man shot by police

By MEGAN STRICKLAND

Daily Inter Lake

A Flathead District judge on Wednesday dismissed a felony charge of assault on a peace officer filed against a Kalispell man who was shot during an armed confrontation with Kalispell Police officers in January.

A prosecutor said the shooting is still considered justified, despite the dismissal.

But Ryan Pengelly’s defense attorney said following a court hearing that Kalispell officers did not give him enough time to react to an order to drop his weapon before shooting him.

“I’m glad it is dismissed,” Pengelly said. “I can actually move on.”

Pengelly, 30, was shot at least four times Jan. 12 at his home on Looking Glass Avenue after he emerged from the back bedroom of the home holding a gun. He had been sleeping. Two officers were struggling to take Pengelly’s mother into custody at the time.

The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office investigated and found the shooting was justified.

Flathead District Judge Amy Eddy dismissed the charge Tuesday afternoon at the request of Stacy Boman of the Flathead County Attorney’s Office.

“The state seeks dismissal without prejudice even though the state is satisfied the shooting in this case was justified and the Kalispell Police Department officers were in genuine fear of their lives,” Boman wrote in her motion. “Given all the circumstances of the case, the state has concluded that further prosecution is no longer warranted. Accordingly, the state hereby moves to dismiss this matter without prejudice, in the interests of justice.”

Defense attorney Peter Leander argued Wednesday that the case should be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the case cannot be brought again by prosecutors.

“There is no reason this should be hanging over him,” Leander said.

Leander also asked that Pengelly’s criminal record be expunged, with his fingerprints and DNA wiped from state databases, and all evidence returned to him.

Boman argued that the state has a five-year statute of limitations in which it could file charges, though she did not anticipate bringing the issue up again.

Boman said the motion to dismiss was based upon information provided by Leander about Pengelly’s history.

“It was not because we questioned the evidence we had,” Boman said.

Eddy agreed to issue a revised order dismissing the case with prejudice. Later that afternoon she agreed to expunge Pengelly’s record.

Leander said wiping away Pengelly’s criminal record in this case would give him better prospects of employment and clear the way for Pengelly to sell his house.

In the Jan. 12 incident, officers opened fire after they told Pengelly to drop the gun he was holding.

Leander said the shots were fired almost simultaneously with the order to drop the gun and that the officers did not announce themselves as police.

The home where the shooting occurred was built by the nonprofit organization Operation Finally Home in 2012 and 2013.

The project provides mortgage-free American-made homes to disabled veterans. At the time, Pengelly — a decorated Army veteran who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan — had lost his home and military service medals in a Whitefish house fire. He suffered a traumatic brain injury from a bomb blast in Iraq in 2008.

Leander said much of what went into the dismissal involved Pengelly’s personal history, including the brain injury.

Leander worked with the Brain Injury Alliance of Montana to give prosecutors evidence that indicated people with brain injuries have “deficits in processing things” they see or hear.

Pengelly said that it takes him more than an hour most days to get out of bed and be able to fully function.

Leander re-created the scene to show that Pengelly’s home is dark, and on a day when the sun backlights someone at the door, all Pengelly probably would have seen the day of the shooting would have been a shadowy figure in the hall.

Leander also took issue with the fact that Pengelly was interviewed by police while he was in the hospital in intensive care, the same day he was hooked up to a ventilator and had tubes in his throat.

“I was greatly disturbed by what I saw in the discovery and the interviews in the way this was handled,” Leander said.

Pengelly said he does not want to pursue legal action against the police department.

“I just want it to go away,” Pengelly said.

He hopes to one day work toward his goal of being a truck driver. His last major surgery was last week, although he faces further surgery to remove some bullet fragments from his body. Police said Pengelly was struck four times; he counted five bullet holes in his body.

His girlfriend, Melissa Pleasant, said doctors have been baffled by his recovery, which included having portions of his intestines removed and letting a damaged liver and pancreas heal.

“The doctors are shocked he healed and recovered,” Pleasant said.

Pengelly still walks with a cane, but he is working his way toward a normal life again.

After all that has happened to him in the past few years, for motivation he holds onto the words his sister wrote on a dry-erase board while he was recovering from the gunshots:

“God chooses his best soldiers for his best battles.”

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or [email protected].