Man who fired at police pleads guilty

Figure in Eureka shootout may go to mental hospital

Special to the Inter Lake

A 56-year-old man involved in a shootout last December at the Eureka police station may be sentenced to the state mental hospital instead of prison.

Mark Nelson, 56, has entered into a plea agreement that dismisses the most serious charge against him and recommends a sentence in the state mental hospital.

Nelson pleaded guilty in District Court last week to two counts each of assault on a peace officer and assault with a weapon.

In return, the county attorney's office agreed to dismiss an attempted deliberate homicide charge and to recommend a sentence of 20 years on each count, to run concurrently, at the state hospital at Warm Springs. Nelson could not be transferred from the hospital to prison without a court review.

Nelson was shot three times by a Eureka police officer after entering the police station with a shotgun and firing two rounds, neither of which hit anyone.

His daughter, Jennifer Nelson, had been arrested earlier following a disturbance at the Eureka Veterans of Foreign Wars club and was being held at the police station pending transport for a mental health evaluation.

Mark Nelson and his daughter's boyfriend, Christopher Showen, had been issued misdemeanor citations relating to the disturbance and released from custody.

According to court documents, Mark Nelson returned to the station with a shotgun about 20 minutes later and entered through a side door that had been opened for an ambulance crew preparing to transport his daughter.

He pointed the gun at ambulance crew members and demanded his daughter's release, then fired a single round of buckshot toward Eureka police officer Ian Jeffcock after Jeffcock commanded him to back away. Jeffcock fired five rounds and hit Nelson once in the abdomen and twice in the thigh.

A second round from Nelson's gun also missed Jeffcock.

Shortly after the shooting, officers found Showen sitting in the front passenger seat of a car that was parked, with the motor running, near the police station. He was taken into custody without incident. According to charges filed against Showen, officers found a loaded handgun, shotgun and hunting rifle in the car along with 15 to 20 shotgun rounds and 50 to 100 handgun rounds.

Jennifer Nelson later pleaded guilty to two counts of assault on a peace officer and one count of making threats in official matters and received a three-year deferred sentence.

Showen entered an Alford plea - not admitting guilt but accepting a conviction - to charges of conspiracy to commit assault with a weapon.

He received a five-year suspended sentence, which was revoked in September following his arrest in Kalispell for a number of probation violations. He was then sentenced to five years with the state Department of Corrections with a recommendation for placement in the Connections Corrections program for chemically dependent offenders.