Man gets 5 years suspended in shootout

Christopher Showen of Whitefish enters Alford plea in December conspiracy case

Special to the Inter Lake

A 26-year-old Whitefish man was given a five-year suspended sentence Monday for charges connected to a shootout in December at the Eureka police station that left another man critically wounded.

In a plea agreement with the County Attorney's Office, Christopher Showen entered an Alford plea - not admitting guilt but accepting a conviction - to charges of conspiracy to commit assault with a weapon, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years.

An additional charge of evidence tampering was dismissed.

Because Showen's sentence exceeded the three-year deferred sentence recommended in the plea agreement, he was given until March 27 to withdraw his plea and go to trial. Unlike a suspended sentence, a deferred sentence can be removed from one's record after probation is completed.

Mark Nelson, 55, was charged with attempted deliberate homicide and two counts each of assault on a peace officer and assault with a weapon after the December incident. He was shot three times by a Eureka police officer. After medical treatment, he is in the county jail in Libby.

According to court documents, the incident began with an apparent disturbance focusing on Jennifer Nelson - Showen's girlfriend and Mark Nelson's daughter - at the Eureka VFW club. Jennifer Nelson is alleged to have used profane and abusive language and to have fought with the law-enforcement officers who arrested her.

Showen and Mark Nelson initially were cited for disorderly conduct and released from custody after about an hour. Jennifer Nelson remained in custody at the Eureka police station pending transport for a mental-health evaluation. She continued to spit at officers and threaten to kill them and family members, court documents show.

According to the charges against him, Mark Nelson returned to the station with a shotgun about 20 minutes after his release and entered through a side door that had been opened for an ambulance crew preparing to transport his daughter. He is accused of pointing the gun at the crew and demanding his daughter's release.

Nelson fired a single round of buckshot at Eureka police officer Ian Jeffcock after Jeffcock, standing in a doorway to another room, told him to back away, the charges contend. Jeffcock, who wasn't hit, fired five rounds, hitting 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. Officers reportedly found a loaded handgun, shotgun and hunting rifle within Showen's reach, along with between 15 and 20 shotgun rounds and from 50 to 100 handgun rounds.

Jennifer Nelson was charged with two felony counts of assault on a peace officer, one felony count of making threats against law officers, and a misdemeanor count of assault with bodily fluids.

Showen was acquitted of a murder charge in Flathead County in 1999.