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Man convicted after armed standoff

KAYE THORNBRUGH | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 9 months AGO
by KAYE THORNBRUGH
Kaye Thornbrugh is a second-generation Kootenai County resident who has been with the Coeur d’Alene Press for six years. She primarily covers Kootenai County’s government, as well as law enforcement, the legal system and North Idaho College. | December 9, 2022 1:00 AM

COEUR d’ALENE — A jury convicted a man last week who was shot by police after an hourslong, armed standoff near an elementary school earlier this year.

Robert J. Green, 40, of Dalton Gardens, was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault on police with a deadly weapon and one count of threatening violence upon school grounds.

The jury acquitted Green of unlawful discharge of a firearm at a vehicle.

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office responded around 2 p.m. Jan. 24 to a residence near Dalton Elementary School, after receiving multiple reports that Green was suicidal and armed with a gun.

The school was placed into a safety hold, a precautionary measure less extreme than a full lockdown.

While the school was being secured, police contacted Green by phone. Green made numerous threats to shoot law enforcement, according to court documents, as well as threats to shoot at the elementary school.

At the end of the school day, sheriff’s deputies and officers with the Coeur d’Alene Police Department assisted in the safe release of students to waiting buses and parents.

Police said they spotted Green outside the residence around 4:30 p.m., lying prone on the driveway in front of a vehicle. He had a rifle, which police said he pointed at multiple officers and toward the school.

While the Sheriff’s Office brought an armored vehicle to the site of the standoff, just before 5 p.m., police again made contact with Green over the phone.

Green reportedly made repeated threats to “light up” the armored vehicle and to “kill whoever is coming down the road right now” as a resident left a neighboring home by car.

At least four police offers shot at Green around 5:30 p.m., from different vantage points, after he pointed a rifle at the armored vehicle, according to court documents.

Though a deputy reported seeing muzzle flashes and heard what he believed to be bullets hitting the armored vehicle, detectives did not locate any marks on the vehicle, nor did they find shell casings in the area where Green stood.

No students were on school grounds at the time of the shooting.

Green wore a “tactical vest” at the time of the shooting, police said. Officers reportedly found multiple firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition on or near Green’s person after the shooting.

Green was transported to Kootenai Health with gunshot wounds to his left hip and upper leg. He remained hospitalized until Feb. 15.

After Green’s release from the hospital, he was arrested by Idaho State Police and transported to jail.

Green’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 26 before Judge Richard Christensen.

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